SR Technical Operations Engineer (Solana)

Spoiler: Your next challenge in serious decentralized tech starts right here.

What this Journey Looks Like
Pearster is looking for a Senior Technical Operations Engineer (Solana) to help power the core systems of a major US blockchain player.

This company is a cloud-based infrastructure provider powering the global blockchain ecosystem. Its mission is to be the indispensable utility that enables companies and innovators worldwide to build next-generation, Web3-enabled businesses and applications using blockchain technology.

In this role, you’ll help keep Solana fast and reliable in production , operating validators, RPC, and indexing at scale. You’ll tune hardware, optimize Agave/Jito, develop tools in Go or Python , and lead incident responses —treating keys, latency, and SLOs with production-level precision. Experience patching clients or contributing upstream fixes is a strong plus.

What You'll Lead and Build

• Run validators: Deploy, upgrade, and tune Agave/Jito; minimize missed slots; maintain healthy voting and high leader performance.

• Operate high-throughput RPC: Set smart connection and queue limits, optimize PubSub fan-out and backpressure, and ensure indexers are efficiently served without starving nodes

• Extract performance from hardware: Select optimal servers, tune BIOS, kernel, NIC, and NVMe configurations, and validate performance gains through profiling and metrics.

• Automate everything: Implement reproducible images, manage fleet changes with Terraform and Ansible, create snapshot pipelines, verify state-sync and replay processes, and build automated release systems.

• Lead incidents (SEV0–2): Quickly isolate issues, execute safe roll-forwards or roll-backs, publish clear root cause analyses, and implement preventive measures to avoid recurrences.

• Collaborate with the ecosystem: Reproduce complex bugs, share performance traces, and contribute targeted patches upstream when beneficial.

• Code where it counts: Develop and extend tools for snapshots, replay/load, and state-sync verification; patch client bugs impacting production and upstream relevant fixes when valuable.

What You Bring to the Table

• Location: Europe (remote-based).

• Linux systems + kernel tuning: NUMA, IRQ affinity, hugepages, cpusets, I/O schedulers, sysctl; filesystem/NVMe layout; BIOS/firmware setup (C-states, power governors); NIC queues/offloads (RSS/RPS/XPS, GRO/LRO/TSO).

• Hardware performance engineering: Choose and tune CPU/RAM/NVMe/NIC; measure replay throughput, p95/p99 RPC latency, IOPS/egress—and push them lower/faster.

• Agave/Jito operations: Build from source; manage feature gates and config flags; snapshots (create/consume), ledger compaction/repair/replay health; accounts-DB tuning; version management.

• Read protocols & surfaces: Operate and tune JSON-RPC ( gRPC, and PubSub; design connection pools, concurrency limits, caching, timeouts, and backpressure that hold under peak.

• Transaction sending logic: Understand direct-to-TPU (QUIC) vs RPC sendTransaction; preflight/simulation trade-offs; priority fees and compute budget tuning; leader-schedule awareness.

• Go or Python (plus Bash): Build small, sharp tools/CLIs (snapshot/restore pipelines, state-sync verification, health checks, replay/load harnesses).

• Observability that matters: SLOs/error budgets; Prometheus/Grafana; alerts that page only when users hurt (RPC latency, PubSub backlog, missed leader slots, replay stalls).

• Key management & safety: KMS/HSM/Vault; authority rotations; secure backups; tested DR paths; controlled, auditable change windows.

Benefits that Move you Forward.

We’re here to amplify your brilliance, not contain it.

• Work from anywhere with true flexibility and freedom.

• Earn in USD with compensation that matches your expertise.

• Recharge confidently with dedicated paid time off.

• Advance your career with fully covered international certifications.

• Access coworking spaces worldwide whenever you want a professional setup.

• Strengthen your English and expand your global reach.

• Connect and have fun with activities that unite our international team.

• Feel appreciated with personalized gifts and a thoughtful welcome kit.

• Grow our community and earn through our referral program.

At Pearster, your journey matters, and we’re here to help you go further than you imagined.