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Senior Validator Engineer

About Raiku
Raiku is reengineering blockchain infrastructure from first principles to make global digital markets as precise and dependable as physical systems. Built on Solana, our platform delivers deterministic execution, guaranteed inclusion, and low-latency performance—solving the foundational failures that cause transactions to miss, trades to revert, and systems to collapse under pressure. By placing high-performance compute close to where transactions happen and coordinating execution through our advanced scheduling engine, Raiku empowers developers to build scalable, high-performance applications—and gives institutions the reliability and control they demand. We believe financial infrastructure should behave like physics: fast, reliable, and predictable—every time, without exception.

The Role
As a Senior Validator Engineer at Raiku, you will spearhead our engineering efforts surrounding the Solana Validator (both Agave and Firedancer), driving the innovation and implementation of next-generation high-performance distributed systems. You will work with a highly proficient team of core engineers who have all contributed to foundational and novel network components.

We believe in hiring only exceptional individuals who are highly motivated to work on complex core infrastructure challenges and are motivated by a coherent system design philosophy that will drive our industry forward. Expect frequent group discussions on architecture, new design specs and code reviews. We are all deeply committed to frequently shipping quality code.

About the Engineering Team
As a team, we are building an entire platform written in Rust, which connects the L1 and L2s and allows us to create deeply complex scenarios and interactions with the running network. While your primary focus for this role is Rust and complex interactions with different components, you may also be involved with other types of development, including exposure to the C-coded Firedancer validator. Working at every level of the stack is necessary to understand the big picture and how everything is wired together.

Responsibilities:

• Highly motivated to contribute to our mission and be part of something bigger. Excited to work on projects that are ground-breaking and complex

• Refactor, improve and lead software design and implementation

• Communicate effectively with the team and document your code. It is also expected that senior engineers mentor less experienced engineers.

• Read and understand protocol specifications and be able to break them into issues and turn them into code.

• Maintaining a large codebase with many components and keeping it well-designed, future-proofed, modular and highly performant

• Automate security testing processes and benchmarks, creating innovative tools and frameworks for continuously improving our systems.

What You'll Bring:

• A bachelor's or master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, coupled with practical experience in blockchain systems.

• At least 3 years of experience in blockchain and distributed systems, with a deep technical understanding of L1 and L2 architectures. Ideally Solana.

• Experience in writing efficient low-level code.

• Strong proficiency in Rust, with at least 2-3 years of Rust experience.

• Demonstrated experience in designing, developing, and deploying scalable distributed systems.

• An analytical mindset with the ability to anticipate and mitigate emerging security threats, leveraging a comprehensive understanding of the blockchain landscape.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proficiency and experience in writing C code.

• Direct involvement in the Solana ecosystem, with contributions to Solana's runtime, scheduler, or other core systems.

• Active open-source contributions in core protocol engineering (such as Firedancer, Reth, Lighthouse, Geth, …).

• Active engagement with the blockchain security research community, evidenced by contributions to open-source projects, publications, or presentations at notable conferences.

Benefits:

• Competitive remuneration packages based on iterative market research, including tokens

• Remote-first and self-initiating with flexible hours

• Work with team players who are genuinely excited about their impact and projects.

• A dynamic and collaborative work environment that fosters innovation and recognises individual contributions to collective success

• Opportunities for professional growth and advancement within a rapidly growing technological frontier