Rust and C++ Systems Engineer

@stevefan1999

Hong Kong Full-Time $100,000 2026-07-20

About @stevefan1999

This individual is a candidate proactively showcasing their skills and experience. They have worked at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, n-hop technologies Limited, Wizpresso, M-Labs Limited, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, gaining diverse experience in software engineering, research, and DevOps within the tech and academic sectors.

About the Position

Introduction

A highly experienced Rust and C++ Systems Engineer with expertise in low-latency optimization and FPGA research, passionate about transitioning into crypto/DeFi trading systems. With a strong background in distributed systems, network architecture, and performance-critical software, this engineer is an active open-source contributor and possesses a practical understanding of options mechanics from retail investing. Eager to apply low-latency expertise to algorithmic trading while diving deep into Web3, DeFi, and crypto market dynamics.

Experience

Research Assistant - The Chinese University of Hong Kong (2024 - 2025)

Conducted research on network coding theory and its applications in distributed storage, wireless communications, and content distribution networks.
Developed and optimized high-performance string matching algorithms using SIMD techniques for significant throughput improvements in pattern recognition.
Investigated hardware acceleration strategies for BATS (BATched Sparse) codes, identifying optimization opportunities through systolic array architectures and FPGA for real-time encoding/decoding.
Engineered SIMD-accelerated Galois Field arithmetic operations using Intel GFNI and SIMDE library, achieving an average 30% performance improvement (peak 2x) for error-correcting code implementations.

Software Engineer - n-hop technologies Limited (2024 - 2026)

Spearheaded Rust integration of the BATS network coding framework (Rust/C++), promoting memory-safe systems programming for high-performance network protocol development.
Architected and developed a POSIX Socket Compatibility layer for the BATS protocol, ensuring seamless integration with legacy applications, demonstrated with EScp.
Designed and implemented a distributed file transfer system using gRPC, establishing a robust and scalable interface for efficient task orchestration and status monitoring.
Managed software quality assurance, including bug triage, resolution, and GitLab CI/CD pipelines for continuous integration and automated testing.
Championed adoption of Development Containers for standardized environments, improving onboarding and ensuring reproducible builds.
Authored comprehensive technical documentation using Astro framework with Starlight theme.
Led infrastructure modernization for an IoT project, migrating from Ubuntu 20.04 to 24.04 LTS with zero-downtime transition.
Contributed to Microsoft's open-source MSQUIC library, debugging and modifying for reliable operation in extreme network conditions (20%+ packet loss).

Junior DevOps Engineer - Wizpresso (2022 - 2024)

Architected hybrid cloud infrastructure using k0s (on-premises) and AKS (cloud) with Pulumi/Terraform IaC.
Spearheaded migration to HashiCorp Nomad, achieving a 10x deployment velocity improvement.
Deployed 10+ distributed services including Rook/Ceph storage, Elasticsearch, and RabbitMQ.
Led architectural transition to an event-driven system with C#, Redis, RabbitMQ, and MassTransit, achieving a 3x performance improvement.
Designed multi-cloud VPN connectivity (on-prem/Azure/AWS) using IPSec and BGP routing.
Implemented Zero-Trust architecture with Wireguard-based Netbird VPN for 30+ devices.
Led security audit with HashiCorp Vault for secrets management and SonarQube for static analysis.
Optimized SQL Server performance, achieving 50% query improvement and 5x storage reduction.
Introduced Kubeflow and Ray for scalable ML pipeline orchestration.
Established observability stack with Grafana, Prometheus, and Loki.

Software Engineer Intern - M-Labs Limited (2021 - 2022)

Worked on dashboard integrations with gateware and firmware using Rust, Python, Qt 5, and Linux (NixOS).

Research Assistant - Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2021 - 2021)

Pioneered design and development of a cloud-native virtual laboratory platform at PolyU with a microservices architecture and auto-scaling.
Orchestrated production environment deployment with Ansible automation and k3s on VMware vSphere.
Implemented Rook-Ceph as a distributed storage solution.
Re-engineered and modernized a laboratory provisioning system from Docker to a Kubernetes-native deployment model.
Successfully delivered and maintained the virtual lab platform serving over 500 active users.