Backend Engineer (HFT / Low-Latency Systems)
Pod is a novel stake-based programmable layer one blockchain designed to bring optimal latency to decentralized systems. By using a simple design without blocks or chains, it aims to enable developers to build fast and user-friendly Web3 products. They have raised a $10M seed round from investors including a16z crypto.
Funding
Projects
About Pod Network
Pod Network is addressing the slow, expensive, and unreliable nature of current blockchain infrastructure that hinders the development of user-friendly applications. Their solution is a novel stake-based programmable layer one built with a simple design: transactions are streamed to validators for attestation and timestamping, eliminating blocks, chains, and complex consensus protocols. This architecture aims for optimal latency (~200ms) and high throughput. Pod is also developing EVMx, a backward-compatible extension of the EVM, to support the Ethereum developer community and their Solidity toolchains. The company follows a philosophy of UX-driven infrastructure, creating products tightly integrated with their own technology to provide value without users needing to understand the underlying decentralized network. They are interested in applications like global payments, decentralized social networks, e-voting, on-chain games, and real-time marketplaces.
Skills
About the Role
You will design and implement latency-critical components of the runtime and order book engine, and optimize network pipelines, serialization, and state access for deterministic sub-millisecond performance. You will contribute protocol primitives for timestamped execution and atomic batch auctions and collaborate with researchers on incentive design and cross-domain settlement models. You will profile and tune concurrency and networking subsystems to push systems toward ultra-low-latency determinism.
Requirements
- Experience building or optimizing HFT systems, exchange matching engines, or low-latency trading infrastructure
- Strong systems programming background in Rust, C++, or Go
- Deep understanding of concurrency, networking, and performance profiling
- Experience with blockchains, consensus, or distributed systems (bonus)
Responsibilities
- Design and implement latency-critical components of the L1 and order book engine
- Optimize network pipelines, serialization, and state access for deterministic performance
- Contribute protocol primitives for timestamped execution and atomic batch auctions
- Collaborate with researchers on incentive design and cross-domain settlement models
Benefits
- Travel opportunities
- Thought leadership visibility in the crypto community
