Staff Systems Engineer – Low Latency & Networking

Staff Systems Engineer — Low Latency Networking — United States — Remote

Jito Labs develops high-performance distributed infrastructure on Solana, including Jito-Solana and the Jito Block Engine, which support validator performance and transaction optimization. This remote United States role focuses on building and debugging latency-sensitive systems where network performance, Linux kernel behavior, and hardware interaction directly affect system reliability.

The engineer works across Rust-based infrastructure, networking protocols, kernel internals, and performance profiling tools to diagnose cross-layer bottlenecks. This position contributes to blockchain infrastructure roles involving distributed systems optimization, observability tooling, and networking performance tuning. The role requires strong systems programming expertise and hands-on debugging across application, operating system, and hardware layers.

This role sits in blockchain infrastructure roles where low-latency performance and reliability are essential to distributed validator and transaction systems.

🔹 Responsibilities

• Debug and improve end-to-end network performance, including NIC tuning, congestion control, packet pacing, and queue discipline optimization
• Analyze network traffic using tools such as tcpdump, Wireshark, and custom observability tooling to understand protocol behavior under load
• Work with multiple networking protocols including TCP, UDP, multicast, ICMP, and IGMP when required
• Apply high-performance I/O and kernel-bypass techniques such as DPDK, XDP, io_uring, or similar technologies
• Investigate Linux kernel source code and networking stack internals to diagnose performance or reliability issues
• Develop internal tools and observability solutions when existing tooling does not meet performance debugging requirements
• Use hardware-level performance tools including perf, eBPF, and flamegraphs to identify bottlenecks
• Analyze CPU and memory-level performance including cache behavior, NUMA effects, memory ordering, and scheduling interactions
• Read and interpret assembly code when required to diagnose low-level performance issues
• Contribute to infrastructure systems, internal tooling, and performance-critical components using Rust, C, or C++

These expectations reflect what recruiters look for in crypto jobs when hiring engineers working on performance-critical distributed systems.

🔹 Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in systems programming, networking, or performance-critical infrastructure
• Deep expertise in Linux systems, kernel behavior, networking internals, and performance tuning
• Strong experience with packet capture, network debugging, and traffic analysis tools
• Experience using performance tracing and profiling tools such as perf, eBPF, and flamegraphs
• Strong programming skills in Rust, C, C++, or similar low-level systems languages
• Solid understanding of algorithms, data structures, and concurrent programming principles
• Proven ability to diagnose complex performance issues across application, operating system, and hardware layers
• Clear and effective technical communication skills

🔹 Strong Plus

• Experience in ultra-low latency environments such as high-frequency trading, real-time systems, or high-performance distributed systems
• Experience optimizing memory subsystems or implementing custom allocators
• Knowledge of virtualization internals and passthrough networking technologies such as SR-IOV or vDPA
• Experience with kernel-adjacent systems including eBPF programs, kernel modules, or driver-level debugging
• Experience working with Solana or blockchain infrastructure

🔹 Compensation & Benefits

• Salary range: $220,000 – $275,000 USD per year
• Equity included as part of total compensation package
• 100% employer-paid health benefits
• Company-paid retreats and conferences
• Weekly meal voucher
• Salary based on experience level