---
title: 'Staff Software Engineer, Rust at Apollo GraphQL'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-rust-apollo-graphql-united-states-or-ahxt940yv1rp'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Staff Software Engineer, Rust at Apollo GraphQL

- **Company:** Apollo GraphQL
- **Location:** United States OR, Canada
- **Compensation:** $192k–$230k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2025-03-27
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/apollo-graphql/9192511f-3649-4de0-aaf6-61149633a406/application

**Skills:** Rust, Systems Engineering, Stateless Systems, Fault-tolerant Systems, Event-driven Patterns, Distributed Paradigms, GraphQL, GraphQL Runtime Systems, Large-scale Systemic Infrastructure

> Build and maintain fault-tolerant, high-performance GraphQL runtime infrastructure using Rust. The role involves operating public APIs, debugging complex production issues, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure system reliability and security.

## Job description

Are you passionate about building secure, high-performance, and reliable infrastructure? Do you thrive on diagnosing and solving hard problems in systems that meet the needs of the most demanding GraphQL workloads in the world? If so, we'd love to talk to you about joining us in operating and evolving next-generation GraphQL runtime infrastructure.

The GraphOS organization owns the critical tier of Apollo's platform — the underlying engine central to making GraphOS a highly performant, secure, governed, and reliable self-service GraphQL platform. As a key member of the GraphOS NA team, you'll be at the heart of this mission, owning the Router and enabling engineering teams to ship faster and deliver richer experiences than ever before.

## What you'll do

- Build, test, and maintain fault-tolerant infrastructure for GraphQL runtime platforms, primarily in idiomatic Rust, ensuring security, performance, and reliability.
- Triage, debug, and resolve escalations from enterprise customers running some of the largest GraphQL deployments in the world — hundreds of subgraphs processing trillions of requests per month.
- Operate and improve durable, stable public APIs used by the world's most demanding GraphQL workloads.
- Engage directly with users — whether community members or enterprise customers — to understand their needs, debug issues, and bring insights back to influence the platform's evolution.
- Design scalable, observable systems that integrate seamlessly into diverse customer infrastructure stacks, leveraging self-initiated research and real-world feedback.
- Collaborate with engineers across teams using supportive communication and constructive code reviews to deliver cohesive solutions.
- Mentor and guide teammates in architecting and writing idiomatic Rust code, while considering the end-to-end impact of changes and ensuring alignment with cross-domain concerns.
- Lead architectural discussions and cross-team initiatives, driving impactful changes as a technical leader or coaching others to step into leadership roles.
- Develop comprehensive technical designs and documentation that address cost efficiency, security, and observability.
- Participate in on-call rotations as a core part of the role, ensuring the reliability of mission-critical systems.

## Who you are — Minimum requirements

- You have experience with Rust and enjoy writing performant, maintainable code.
- You have expertise in systems engineering, including knowledge of stateless/fault-tolerant systems, event-driven patterns, and distributed paradigms.
- You have strong debugging instincts and are energized by hands-on operational work, not just feature development.
- You excel at cross-team collaboration and have a "rising tide lifts all boats" mentality, positively influencing others across the organization.
- You're passionate about GraphQL, modern developer tooling, and contributing to industry-leading innovations.
- You have a growth mindset and actively seek opportunities to learn and stay current with industry trends.

## Nice to have

- Experience with GraphQL or large-scale runtime systems.
- Experience navigating high-escalation or high-incident environments.

## ABOUT APOLLO

Whether you binge-watch a series on Netflix, plan faraway vacations from your phone, or read international news online, you've likely used Apollo's technology this week. Apollo supports some of the largest GraphQL platforms in the world.

We're not looking to rest on our laurels though — we're aiming to change how software is built. Apollo wants to empower every software team to build an amazing user experience across any number of clients, without dealing with a barrage of API endpoints.

Apollo is intent on becoming the company where you can see your career grow through challenging work, collaborating with incredible teammates, and accomplishing the unattainable.

Compensation & Benefits: At Apollo, we strive to provide competitive, market-informed compensation whilst ensuring consistency within the team in each country. We make hiring decisions based on your skills, experience, and our overall assessment of what we learned during the hiring process.

In addition to the U.S. base salary range, we also provide equity and benefits. Apollo offers all U.S. employees a choice of 3 Anthem Blue Cross medical plans and California residents can also choose from an additional 2 Kaiser medical plans. Dental and Vision benefits are provided by Sun Life Financial.

Location: This is a remote position that can be done from anywhere in the US or Canada (Canada has a different compensation range).

Equal Opportunity: Apollo is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace dedicated to pursuing and hiring a talented and diverse workforce.

Privacy: California residents applying for positions at Apollo can see our privacy policy here https://www.apollographql.com/CCPA-Privacy-Notice-for-Employees.pdf.

E-Verify: Apollo is an E-Verify employer and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. For more information please visit E-Verify https://www.e-verify.gov.

## About Apollo GraphQL

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Apollo GraphQL provides an API orchestration platform that enables teams to unify GraphQL and REST APIs into a single, composable graph for powering AI agents, web, and mobile applications.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series D)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2016
- **Founders**: Matt DeBergalis (CTO & Co-founder), Nick Martin (Co-founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Software Development / API Infrastructure
- **Target customers**: B2B, Enterprise, and SMB engineering teams building modern applications and AI agents
- **Mission or purpose**: To make application development easier, better, and accessible to more people by simplifying how software applications communicate with infrastructure.

## Products & Services
- **[GraphOS Platform](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: A commercial API orchestration platform that enables backend teams to build a self-service, self-documenting graph (supergraph) that unifies GraphQL and REST APIs. It provides GraphQL-native metrics, performance optimization, and governance for AI agents, web, and mobile apps.
- **[Apollo Federation](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: An open-source architecture for composing multiple GraphQL services into a single unified graph, enabling teams to work independently while maintaining a cohesive API.
- **[Apollo Connectors](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: A low-code tool that allows teams to bring all APIs together in minutes on a declarative, query-based GraphQL platform, accelerating app development.
- **[Apollo Client](https://www.apollographql.com/)**: A popular open-source GraphQL client for frontend development, enabling declarative data fetching and state management.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (Private company)
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue of approximately **$38.8 million** (latest estimate) [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/)
- **Total Funding**: Backed by **Andreessen Horowitz, Matrix Partners, Insight Partners**, and others. Specific funding amounts not publicly detailed in recent data.
- **Notable Customers**: Netflix, Coinbase, PayPal, The New York Times, Booking.com, Expedia Group, Walmart, Peloton, Wayfair, DoorDash, Bumble, Hyatt, Volkswagen, Cox Automotive, MLB, and many more [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/).
- **Growth Signals**: Over **1 billion downloads** of its open-source software; powers some of the largest GraphQL APIs in the world; expanding into AI agent orchestration; trusted by enterprise leaders across industries [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Open-source dominance**: With over 1 billion downloads, Apollo’s open-source tools (Apollo Client, Apollo Server, Apollo Federation) are the de facto standard for GraphQL development.
- **Enterprise-grade platform**: GraphOS provides a secure, governed, and scalable infrastructure for managing APIs at scale, trusted by companies like Netflix, Coinbase, and Walmart.
- **AI-native orchestration**: The platform is purpose-built to connect AI agents to GraphQL and REST APIs, positioning Apollo at the center of the AI application development wave.
- **Strong developer community**: A massive, active open-source community ensures continuous innovation, widespread adoption, and a deep talent pool.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI agent orchestration**: Extending the graph platform to power AI agents and agentic applications, enabling safe and governed access to enterprise data.
- **Platform composability**: Continuing to evolve GraphOS to allow teams to define core entities and business logic once and ship them anywhere, across any interface.
- **Enterprise scale and governance**: Providing a central registry, standardized workflows, and security controls for large organizations to manage their API ecosystems.
- **Performance and reliability**: Optimizing GraphQL performance with features like the GraphOS Router, real-time data, and latency reduction.

## Why Work Here
- **Globally distributed, remote-first culture**: Apollo is a globally distributed company with over 220 "Apollonauts" across 10 countries and 13 time zones. There is no return-to-office mandate; the company is fully remote-first [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/careers).
- **Strong values-driven environment**: The company operates on four core values: **Growth Mindset**, **Empowering Others**, **Caring**, and **Stewardship**. These guide hiring, collaboration, and how the team shows up for each other and customers [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/careers).
- **Comprehensive benefits**: Full benefits package (varies by country), **Flexible Time Off (FTO)**, and **parental leave** for birthing and non-birthing parents, supported by a personal leave specialist [apollographql.com](https://www.apollographql.com/careers).
- **Engineering culture**: Engineers work on high-performance, secure, and reliable infrastructure for some of the most demanding GraphQL workloads in the world. The team is passionate about Rust, distributed systems, and open-source.
- **Work environment**: Fully remote-first, globally distributed team across 10 countries and 13 time zones. The company emphasizes autonomy, collaboration, and learning from each other.

## Sources
1. [Apollo GraphQL Official Website](https://www.apollographql.com/)
2. [Apollo GraphQL Careers Page](https://www.apollographql.com/careers)
3. [Apollo GraphQL LinkedIn](https://it.linkedin.com/company/apollo-graphql)
4. [Apollo GraphQL GitHub](https://github.com/apollographql)
5. [Apollo GraphQL Jobs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/apollo-graphql)

## Other roles at Apollo GraphQL

- [Senior Staff Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-product-designer-apollo-graphql-united-states-ymv3e5fkep66) — United States
- [GTM Enablement Manager (Technical)](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-enablement-manager-technical-apollo-graphql-united-states-skrkststpgdb) — United States
- [Staff Software Engineer - AI Runtime](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-ai-runtime-apollo-graphql-united-states-yydz9nd1tyjs) — United States
- [Senior Solution Engineer (Pre-sales)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-solution-engineer-pre-sales-apollo-graphql-united-states-mafb0h0ykg5x) — United States
- [Senior Enterprise Account Executive  - UK](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-enterprise-account-executive-uk-apollo-graphql-united-kingdom-q6yttaspty12) — United Kingdom
- [Senior Software Engineer - Trust and Telemetry](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-trust-and-telemetry-apollo-graphql-united-states-or-8wersrd2xzct) — United States OR, Canada
- [Senior Platform Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-platform-engineer-apollo-graphql-united-states-or-nz90v7hws6yx) — United States OR, Canada