Principal Backend Engineer - Founding Team

About Rio

Rio operates the leading stablecoin FX platform and APIs in LATAM, processing millions of dollars in payment volume per month and outperforming competitors many times our size. Although our product has been live for more than two years, we have kept our team intentionally lean. This will be our first dedicated backend engineering hire, responsible for helping us scale our systems for the next phase of growth.

This role Is unconventional

The responsibilities extend well beyond traditional software development. Services you touch will move significant amounts of client funds in real time. This work demands a rare blend of technical depth, precision, speed, and clear communication. Many excellent engineers will decide this environment is not the right fit. Those who thrive in high-stakes, high-ownership settings will find it uniquely rewarding.

Exceptional technical skills
Building high-volume financial software requires meticulous engineering, and working with crypto assets raises the bar even further because faulty code can irreversibly move or lose customer funds. This is one of the greatest operational risks to the company, so every function must be designed, tested, and monitored with edge cases and loss of funds scenarios in front of mind. Selective use of AI is acceptable only for small, self-contained utilities (no vibe coding), and any generated code must read as if you wrote it yourself. In urgent debugging situations you will be expected to understand every line you wrote. This mentality has allowed us to scale without an issue of this kind to date. Our stack consists mostly of TypeScript microservices on Kubernetes, but sound reasoning about asynchronous communication is the essential skill.

Capacity to deliver quickly under pressure
At first glance this may seem to contradict the need for meticulous engineering, yet the best engineers understand that speed and reliability are not mutually exclusive. By staying motivated, energetic, and heads down, and by eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic processes, you can ship reliable solutions faster than clients expect.

Clear and confident communication
Daily responsibilities include discussions with clients and coordination with cross-functional teams. Strong verbal and written communication is a fundamental requirement.

Verified trust and accountability
We are handing you the keys to code that moves millions of dollars every day. To create the required level of confidence, we look for signals such as experience at a respected technology company or a degree from a leading university. This serves as an initial trust filter before we grant access to mission-critical systems.

Candidates who meet these standards will receive a highly competitive compensation package and the opportunity to join a talented team building the best stablecoin FX product in Latin America that is still in the early stages of its growth trajectory. Please reach out if you are interested.