Have 5+ years of experience as a software engineer working on production backend systems
Have strong hands-on expertise in C++ or Rust in real-world, high-load services
Have built and operated high-load, low-latency user-facing systems handling thousands of RPS under strict latency constraints
Understand performance at a systems level — CPU, memory, networking, and data access
Have operated your own code in production: deployed it, debugged incidents, and rolled back changes when necessary
Think end-to-end about request flows rather than staying within isolated components
Can balance correctness, latency, and development velocity, making pragmatic tradeoffs when scope or time requires
Collaborate effectively across engineering, ML, and product teams, communicating clearly in cross-functional settings
DBMS internals (open source or SaaS) and cloud infrastructure
High-load web applications or large-scale APIs
Performance-critical systems such as trading platforms or real-time data pipelines
Low-level performance tuning and hardware-level optimisation
Open-source contributions or active involvement in the engineering community
Competitive programming or CTF participation
SHAD or similar advanced technical programmes
Conference talks or technical publications
We conduct coding interviews as part of the process
Fast moving - Bold thinking - Constant growth - Meaningful impact - Trust and real ownership - Opportunity to shape the future of AI