Software Engineer (Java Generalist)

MLabs

4h • $160,000 - $200,000

About The Position

Our firm has been retained by a high-growth, mission-driven technology company to find a world-class Principal Java Systems Engineer. This is not a role for "glue" engineers who connect off-the-shelf components; this is for the engineer who sees performance ceilings as a personal challenge and prefers squeezing 30% more throughput out of clean Java over renting 30% more cloud compute.
Our client is building a high-performance, publicly visible immutable ledger. In an industry where people "move fast and break things," this team operates like NASA: moving fast while ensuring correctness, performance, and efficiency are 100% right the first time. You will join an elite team where you aren't a cog in the machine—you are the architect building it.

Requirements

• 10+ years of professional software development experience.
• Deep understanding of the JVM, including memory models, threading, GC behavior, and performance profiling.
• Experience with parsers, interpreters, compilers, or other language tooling.
• Strong grasp of data structures, algorithms, concurrency, and high-performance code with minimal dependencies.
• Ability to deliver a high-performance server from scratch using just the JDK and an IDE.
• Proficient with JMH, PBJ, async-profiler, JFR, YourKit, or similar performance tools.
• Master’s degree in Computer Science or equivalent deep industry experience.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in distributed systems or blockchain technology.
• Knowledge of cryptographic primitives (hashes, public/private keys).
• Familiarity with Web3 tools, smart contract platforms (EVM), or high-frequency trading (HFT) systems.

Responsibilities

• Invent new protocols, data structures, and algorithms to solve problems no one else has tackled.
• Design and write high-throughput Java systems from scratch, tuning memory down to the byte and performance to the nanosecond.
• Build parsers, interpreters, and performance profilers from the ground up.
• Mentor senior and staff engineers while making architectural decisions that ensure the correctness of a global ledger.
• Switch fluently between high-level system design and single-instruction-level optimization.
• Build harnesses and tests to ensure mission-critical financial software never breaks.

Benefits

• Career-Defining Impact: Build the foundational infrastructure for the next generation of the digital economy.
• Technical Autonomy: Work on a small team with high ownership and the freedom to craft brilliant systems "the right way."
• Intellectual Challenge: Solve puzzles that require deep-stack engineering knowledge rather than standard API integration.
• Professional Growth: Mentorship from and for some of the best minds in distributed systems.
• Highly competitive salary and equity packages reflecting the "Principal" level of this role.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal