Lead Rust Engineering Consultant
Mainmatter·Lead·Remote · Worldwide·$80k–$100k EUR
Posted Oct 4, 2026·mainmatter.com
Lead Rust Engineering Consultant 2026
Please email jobs+rust@mainmatter.com with your résumé and availability.
Who we are
Mainmatter is an engineering consultancy that helps clients solve their toughest tech challenges. We share our skills and expertise as teammates and help clients adapt new technologies like Rust, push through bottlenecks, or modernize legacy systems and practices.
We’re also the team behind the EuroRust conference.
More about our work with Rust: https://mainmatter.com/rust-consulting/
Who we are looking for
We are looking for a Lead Rust Engineering Consultant to take a tech lead role on our team. You have an excellent Rust background (production experience, ideally with an OSS portfolio we can look at) and strong expertise in C-to-Rust migrations or Rust web backends, ideally both.
You lead beyond the code: you organize projects for other engineers, can join sales calls with prospective clients, and effectively use LLMs to accelerate Rust projects without compromising quality. Ideally, you are a visible presence in the Rust community through open source, conference talks, or writing. We expect excellent English communication, as well as being comfortable with pair-programming, running workshops, and advising clients.
We are looking for employees only (we can hire in the European Union).
Responsibilities
- you will work with clients on their projects as well as work on open source
- you will lead projects: scope the work, organize it for the other engineers on the project, and keep it on track
- you will join sales calls with prospective clients and help turn their problems into well-scoped engagements
- you will research how to use agentic engineering to accelerate delivery on Rust projects without compromising quality, and help the team and clients develop this expertise
- through working with clients, you will help explore, develop and establish best practices and architectures for projects that build on Rust
- you will mentor client teams via workshops, pair programming, presentations, reviews etc. – know-how transfer is an important aspect of the work we do
- you're sensitive to clients' needs and create trusting work relationships by reviewing code or discussing implementation options in a collaborative fashion
- you share your learnings made on client and open-source projects with the community through blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc.
- we're committed to our participation in the open source community and give talks, attend conferences, host meetups etc. If you enjoy doing that as well that's great and we'll make sure to support you in any related engagements
Skills
Must have
- working experience with Rust in production
- strong expertise in C-to-Rust migrations or Rust web backends (ideally both)
- experience leading projects and organizing work for other engineers
- experience using AI to accelerate development without compromising quality
- excellent English communication (written and spoken)
- a good understanding of software architecture and design
Nice to have (but not required)
- a visible presence in the Rust community (open source, conference talks, writing – please share links with your application)
- experience with infrastructure (e.g. CI, deployment automation, DevOps topics like Kubernetes, etc.)
- experience with consulting work arrangements as well as mentoring/training experience
- any experience in product management, including sprint planning in collaboration with a product team/product owners
- experience with high-availability systems
How we work
We're a team of open-minded developers who value collaboration, empathetic working relationships and well-crafted code. Beyond a supportive team culture and a relaxed work atmosphere, we enable you to take part in modern projects for clients ranging from small startups to big enterprises, national as well as international. We work closely with our clients and encourage direct communication without intermediaries. You'll have responsibility early on and have the opportunity to both guide the development of these client projects as well as grow your own technical and interpersonal skill set.
We also offer the opportunity to travel internationally – either to visit clients on-site for a limited time or to attend tech conferences (if you enjoy speaking or you're interested to do so that's awesome! We'll support you in finding mentoring support either through one of our experienced team members or any other external support that you find useful).
Apart from working on client projects we also maintain a bunch of open source libraries and tools on which you're invited to work on as well. We reserve 1 day of the week for such work or work on writing blog posts, recording videos or preparing conference talks.
What we offer
- self-guided work on interesting projects for international clients
- competitive salary (80k€-100k€)
- 30 days of paid vacation
- a flextime schedule to accommodate the needs of caretakers
- time to work on open source projects (1 day per week reserved for non-client work)
- personal support to deepen your knowledge in topics that you feel are close to you
- chance and support to attend and speak at international conferences
- a flat organization with little process standing in your way
- regular company events to meet your team members
- an international, communicative and supportive team
- flexible work environment
- we are a full remote company and all team members get to choose whether they work from home or a co-working space close to them
- learning budget for workshops, conferences, books, etc.
- notebook, screen, phone, etc. as well as a coworking budget or budget for setting up a home-office
