Principal Rust Engineer – Language Runtime

We are Progress (Nasdaq: PRGS), a company that builds software enabling our customers to develop, deploy, and manage responsible, AI‑powered applications and experiences with agility and ease. Join us as a Principal Rust Engineer – Language Runtime in a hybrid role between a home office and our Burlington, MA headquarters.

Overview

We are building a production language runtime in Rust that includes a compiler, virtual machine, wire protocol client, and application server. As a long‑term technical owner, you will work alongside experienced platform architects and a second Rust engineer.

Responsibilities

• Implement and optimize an async, register‑based virtual machine with cooperative scheduling and built‑in function dispatch.
• Translate language semantics from a reference C implementation into idiomatic, correct Rust.
• Extend a multi‑stage compiler pipeline (lexer, parser, AST, IR, code‑gen) and deliver new language features with conformance and property‑based tests.
• Extend a binary wire protocol implementation reverse‑engineered from C source; own TLS, authentication, and connection pooling.
• Maintain a Tokio‑based async runtime handling thousands of concurrent requests with shared state and admission control.
• Contribute to HTTP, WebSocket, and gRPC server layers.
• Manage a large multi‑crate Cargo workspace—dependency hygiene, CI performance, and release engineering.
• Mentor senior engineers (20+ years platform experience) adopting Rust through teaching‑oriented code reviews, pair programming, and progressive ownership handoff.
• Document architecture decisions and maintain design docs as first‑class deliverables.

Qualifications

• Overall 10+ years of software engineering experience.
• 5+ years of production Rust in systems software (runtimes, compilers, databases, or networking).
• Experience with a compiler or language runtime (parser, AST/IR, bytecode compiler, VM, or interpreter).
• Async Rust at scale—Tokio, shared‑state concurrency, cancellation safety.
• Fluency with large multi‑crate Cargo workspaces.
• Ability to read large C codebases and derive correct Rust implementations.
• Mentorship mindset—patience, clear communication, progressive handoff.
• Long‑term ownership orientation—multi‑year commitment.
• Excellent written and verbal English.
• CS degree or equivalent (data structures, algorithms, OS, compilers).

Desired Qualifications

• VM design—opcode dispatch, cooperative scheduling, register allocation.
• Binary protocol reverse‑engineering and zero‑copy parsing.
• Property‑based testing (proptest, quickcheck).
• Concurrent data structures—DashMap, Moka, lock‑free patterns.
• Axum/Tower/WebSocket server experience.
• Developer tooling protocols (LSP, DAP).
• Observability—tracing, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus.
• Database connectivity—pooling, transactions, schema resolution.
• Experience onboarding engineering teams into Rust.
• AI‑assisted development tools (Copilot, Claude).

Compensation & Benefits

• Base Salary Range: $170,000 – $189,000.
• Eligibility to participate in performance‑based annual corporate bonus plan.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life & disability, and financial benefits (including 401(k) retirement savings plan).
• Tuition reimbursement program.
• Voluntary benefits: crucial illness/hospital indemnity, identity theft protection, auto & home insurance, legal, and pet insurance.
• Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP) with 27‑month lookback.
• Flexible paid vacation, paid day off for birthday, and company holidays.
• Various leave plans, including parental leave.
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and well‑being program focusing on physical, mental, and financial health.