Staff Software Engineer - Rust

We’re helping organizations deploy supergraphs at scale using Apollo Federation. Are you passionate about language engineering and understand what it takes to write a compiler or a query planner? If so we’d love to talk to you about joining us in building next-generation GraphQL infrastructure.

With more and more GraphQL APIs being deployed by product teams in organizations building and organizing subgraphs into a supergraph is crucial in helping engineers quickly build new apps. In this role you’ll critically impact architecting new query language features. You will lead initiatives and guide other developers partnering with your engineering manager product design and others to deliver best-in-class products that span our entire platform. You’ll work with talented folks who value code that is 80% of the value for 20% of the work designs that are forward-thinking enough to be easily flexible for the next features and lead through ambiguity with a healthy dose of mindfulness and humility. You’ll help them grow and they’ll help you.

Apollo is the worldwide leader of GraphQL innovation. Companies like Netflix Expedia Peloton DoorDash The New York Times and Zillow are just a small sample of Apollo's customers. Our open-source product has millions of downloads every week. According to the new Gartner report by 2027 more than 60% of enterprises will use GraphQL in production (up from less than 30% in 2024) and 30% of those enterprises will be using GraphQL federation which was pioneered by Apollo.

GraphQL is transforming the software development space by creating a brand new layer in companies' stacks called the supergraph that helps engineering teams ship faster and build richer experiences than ever before. Join us and build the future of Apollo’s Graph Management Plane!

What you'll do

• Lead mentor and guide other engineers in architecting and writing code in idiomatic Rust ensuring that end-to-end consideration of the impact of changes is well-rationalized and that proper cross-domain concerns have been accounted for.

• You’ll become a key Domain owner for the team taking responsibility for the success of every system and product you own ensuring the relevant telemetry is being captured.

• Write test deliver document and operate fault-tolerant infrastructure using durable and stable public APIs primarily in idiomatic Rust but also in other languages like TypeScript and Kotlin.

• Communicate confidently with users — whether community or customers — across a broad range of topics to understand their needs and debug their difficulties. Bring learnings findings and recommendations back to teammates as well as Product and Engineering leadership.

• Research and produce clear and maintainable designs which are considerate of our platform of concerns while aligning with technical Product Mangers’ requirements and engineers across teams and delivering for users’ needs.

• Participate in consult and lead architectural discussions that define how to operate best and observe graph routing software in customers’ infrastructure stacks using a combination of self-initiated research and real-world experiences.

• Collaborate with other engineers across the organization using supportive communication and constructive code-reviews.

• You will lead cross-team groups of developers and shepherd large-impact initiatives along either as the technical leader or coaching members of the team to become technical leaders.

• You’ll make an impact directly through your contributions and by mentoring others on your team.

• You’ll create technical designs that proactively address cost efficiency security and observability.

• You’ll deliver technical plans one-pagers DRs and other artifacts.

• You'll participate in on-call rotation.

About you

• You have deep systems expertise and experience with stateless/fault tolerant systems as well as familiarity with eventing patterns and distributed paradigms.

• You have experience with Rust.

• You are adept at weighing technical and business trade-offs and can “see down the road and around corners”.

• You enjoy cross-team collaboration and believe in a “rising tides lifts all boats” mentality. You level up those around you bringing everyone along for the ride.

• You have the ability to work with many different team members across various orgs and positively influence others.

• You are data-oriented with a history of leveraging data to create a sticky high-quality product for users.

• Bonus points if you know GraphQL!

$167000 - $211000 a year

At Apollo we strive to provide competitive market-informed compensation whilst ensuring consistency within the team in each country. We make hiring decisions based on your skills experience and our overall assessment of what we learned during the hiring process.

In addition to the U.S. base salary range we also provide equity and benefits. Apollo offers all U.S. employees a choice of 3 Anthem Blue Cross medical plans and California residents can also choose from an additional 2 Kaiser medical plans. Dental and Vision benefits are provided by Sun Life Financial.

Location: This is a remote position that can be done from anywhere in the US or Canada; however the team is distributed globally so this role will require some meetings in Eastern Standard Timezone mornings.

Equal Opportunity: Apollo is proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a talented and diverse workforce.

Privacy: California residents applying for positions at Apollo can see our privacy policy here .

E-Verify: Apollo is an E-Verify employer and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. For more information please visit E-Verify.