Senior Software Engineer | Data Infrastructure | Rust

Department: Tech

Location: Amsterdam

Employment Type: FullTime

BlockTech is hiring a Senior Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure, to join its Foundation team in Amsterdam.

We host and tune our own Kafka, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, and Iceberg setup. Every trade, backtest, and risk check at BlockTech reads data that flows through it. In this role, you'll take technical ownership of this platform.

About BlockTech

BlockTech is an algorithmic trading firm headquartered in Amsterdam, with a second office in Singapore. We specialize in market making and trade cryptocurrency derivatives and spot markets globally, using our own capital. We're growing fast and expanding into new markets.

The Foundation team owns the systems that move, aggregate, and store all of BlockTech's data: exchange feeds, our own trade and account events, and the history we query to make sense of both. We work primarily in Rust, with Python and SQL alongside.

What will you do?

You will own the pipelines and stores every other team depends on. When a researcher backtests a strategy, a trader checks a position, or Risk queries yesterday’s orders, they're reading data your systems ingested, routed, processed and stored. As a senior engineer, you'll set the technical standards the rest of the team builds against and you'll also be the expert on a domain (part of the data stack) where you'll be expected to think of better and newer approaches and solutions, and to help other teams use our stack efficiently: find solutions to their problems and guide them with your expertise.

You will:

• Enable other teams. Make integrating with the platform straightforward for trading, research, and engineering, and turn recurring problems into shared libraries.

• Own the ingest path. Collect public and private exchange data and internal trading events with minimal latency impact, and land it in our trading systems in real time.

• Architect the streaming layer. Design and operate our Kafka and NATS messaging for the throughput and delivery guarantees our critical flows depend on.

• Build the storage layer. Develop real-time aggregation and long-term storage across PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, and Iceberg, and make the structural calls that keep queries fast as volumes grow.

• Run what you build. Own capacity, retention, schema evolution, failure behavior for infrastructure we host ourselves, and metrics and alerting.

• Make the data trustworthy. Design the detection and repair flows that catch gaps, duplicates, and drift before anyone downstream notices.

• Drive projects end to end. Take ownership of your work from concept to production, and bring in new tools when the current ones stop being the right answer.

• Raise the bar. Mentor engineers, lead by example in code and design reviews, and shape the wider team's technical direction.

What we're looking for

You'll need:

• 3+ years as a software engineer, including designing and operating production data infrastructure where reliability and correctness matter.

• Proficiency in Rust, or strong C or C++ and the appetite to work primarily in Rust.

• Hands-on experience with at least some of our stack: Kafka, Redpanda, NATS, PostgreSQL, ClickHouse, or Iceberg. Self-hosted experience is a big plus.

• Solid distributed systems judgment: consistency, backpressure, and failure modes.

• Systems-level thinking

• Strong end-to-end ownership, and a critical mind that follows problems through to completion.

• Excellent level of written and spoken English.

Bonus points for:

• A background in trading, fintech, or another domain where bad data has immediate consequences.

• Experience with systems programming on Linux, compiler engineering, systems security and observability tooling such as Grafana or Prometheus.

• Experience with PostgreSQL extensions and submitting patches for Kafka.

• Knowledge of networking

You don't need trading or crypto experience, or every technology on the list. If you've run serious data infrastructure and want to do it in Rust, we want to hear from you!

Pay, location, and relocation

• Compensation: a competitive base salary plus a performance bonus based on individual and company results.

• Trading fund: outstanding performance is rewarded with the opportunity to buy into the trading fund.

• Location: On-site at our Amsterdam office

• Visa: BlockTech sponsors the Dutch highly skilled migrant visa.

• Relocation: All-in relocation package and Dutch classes for international hires. Eligible hires may qualify for the 30% ruling.

What else is in it for you

• Pension plan, company laptop, and home internet reimbursement

• An extensive in-house training program and an annual learning and development budget

• An environment that embraces AI, both to speed up your work and to advance our systems

• Gym reimbursement and sports during working hours: kickboxing, CrossFit, fitness, and soccer

• Weekly Friday drinks, monthly outings, quarterly sports competitions, and two trips abroad a year

• Daily breakfast and warm lunch, plus snacks and drinks all day

How we work

We're a team of trading and tech enthusiasts with a flat hierarchy. Have an idea today, and it can ship tomorrow. The best idea wins, whoever it comes from.

This role comes with a high degree of autonomy. You'll own hard problems from concept to production and solve them your way. We promote reverse leadership, give everyone an equal playing field, and invest in personal and professional development.

Ready to own the data the whole firm trades on?

Make your move and apply! You can expect to hear back from us within 5 working days.

Our culture

At our core, we are a team of passionate trading and tech enthusiasts committed to revolutionizing trading through automation. Our collaborative approach ensures that everyone contributes to achieving our ambitious goals.

In this role, you will be both challenged and stretched, with ample opportunities for growth and development, both within and beyond your main responsibilities.

We invest in our people by offering competitive compensation and benefits, fostering innovation, and celebrating success. Our commitment to personal development transcends traditional norms; we provide an equal playing field, promote reverse leadership, and offer boundless growth opportunities for all our employees.

Join us to unlock your potential and drive innovation in the exciting world of algorithmic trading.