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De Circle

Semiotic Labs - Rust Engineer

De Circle, San Francisco

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We are a team of multidisciplinary experts in artificial intelligence, cryptography, and software engineering who collaborate to build solutions for unsolved problems in web3. We work on challenges such as trust-minimized micropayments, low-latency request processing, data verification, and dynamic pricing. We've published research at prestigious AI conferences like NeurIPS and developed novel optimization algorithms. We make web3 smarter and verifiable.
We are a core developer of The Graph protocol ($1B+ market cap), an indexing protocol for organizing and accessing the world's data. We are also the parent company of Odos, a market-leading liquidity aggregator that supports $5B+ in monthly trading volume.
You can learn more about Semiotic Labs at semiotic.ai or by watching this presentation.
The Role
We're looking for a Rust Engineer who's excited about building scalable, cryptographically secure systems for web3 infrastructure. You'll work on GraphTally , implementing performant, reliable components that enable stateless, one-way payment channels at scale. This role is ideal for someone who thrives on solving protocol design challenges and building robust, production-ready Rust code.
This role is perfect for those who thrive in a multidisciplinary team solving complex, unsolved problems through research and engineering. You'll excel here if you're excited about working on a small, agile team where your daily work drives innovation-both internally and across the web3 ecosystem. Above all, you should be passionate about delivering real value to users.
What You'll Do

  • Design, implement, and maintain core components of the GraphTally protocol in Rust.
  • Collaborate with researchers and protocol engineers to refine and evolve the architecture.
  • Optimize signature verification, message processing, and batching for high-throughput performance.
  • Implement secure state transition logic, trust-minimized payment flows, and smart contract interactions.
  • Work closely with smart contract engineers to ensure seamless on-chain integration (mainly on L2s like Arbitrum).
  • Write clean, testable, and efficient code with a focus on security and correctness.
Contribute to technical documentation, specifications, and developer tooling to support GraphTally adoption.
  • 3+ years of professional experience writing high-performance, production-quality async code in Rust .
  • Experience in designing and implementing remote APIs (REST, JSON-RPC, gRPC)
  • Experience in responsive microservices design and development
  • Experience with databases (Postgres, Redis)
  • Experience with Docker.
  • Deep understanding of cryptographic primitives, especially ECDSA and digital signature schemes.
  • Proficient with Rust's async/await model , leveraging futures, tokio, or async-std
  • Understanding of asynchronous state machines for managing complex protocol flows
  • Familiarity with zero-knowledge proofs , state/payment channels , or escrow mechanisms is a plus.
  • Strong grasp of trust-minimized systems, distributed protocols, or payment rails in a web3 context.
  • Experience working with Ethereum L2s (like Arbitrum, Optimism) and integrating with smart contracts .
  • Proficiency with testing, benchmarking, and debugging asynchronous Rust applications in the context of web3, using tools like anvil.
  • Clear communication, curiosity, and a strong sense of ownership.
Bonus Points
  • Familiarity with The Graph protocol or Indexer infrastructure.
  • Exposure to decentralized microservice architectures or multi-agent systems.
  • Prior work on gas-optimized smart contracts or cryptographic batch verification.
  • Experience with zkSNARKs, RAVs, or verifiable off-chain aggregation techniques.
Why Join Semiotic Labs
  • Be part of a small, high-caliber team solving cutting-edge problems in decentralized infrastructure.
  • Work on a deeply technical and meaningful mission that helps scale web3.
  • Shape the direction of a foundational protocol used by agents and services across the ecosystem.
  • Fully remote, async-friendly team with competitive compensation and token upside.