Internship Rust Backend Developer Jobs in Austin, TX

Who We Are

Travoom is currently paused as we focus entirely on building OleOle - a football-focused social network, messaging platform, and sports super app designed for the world's biggest sport.

At the same time, oleolesport.com continues to operate as our curated football travel and hospitality marketplace, offering premium fan experiences around the biggest matches and tournaments in the world.

Both platforms are strategically connected:
OleOle is the fan engagement, social, messaging, and content platform
oleolesport.com is the commerce and travel experiences platform

Together, they are designed to create a complete football ecosystem for fans globally.

What We're Building

OleOle is building a next-generation football platform combining:
Social networking and microblogging
Messaging and mobile calls
TikTok-style short-form video
Live scores and match experiences
AI-powered football history and statistics
Real-time global fan engagement

We believe football deserves its own dedicated platform - not a small section buried inside general-purpose social networks.

Football is the world's biggest sport with more than 3 billion fans globally, yet no company has successfully built a true digital home for football supporters.

OleOle is designed to become that platform.

Why It Matters

Football fandom is global, emotional, tribal, and active every day of the year.

Yet today, the fan experience remains fragmented across disconnected social platforms, messaging apps, score apps, news sites, ticketing sites, and travel providers.

Fans move constantly between products that were never built specifically for football culture or football communities.

We believe supporters are looking for a place to truly "kick off" - a platform designed around how football fans actually communicate, follow matches, consume content, travel, and engage with their clubs and national teams.

Why We're Different

oleolesport.com removes the complexity from planning football travel experiences by combining curated ticketing, hospitality, lodging, and travel experiences into one streamlined platform.

OleOle extends that vision much further - creating a football-first platform built specifically around fan identity, conversation, live interaction, creator content, and global football culture.

This is not another generic sports app.

We are building a dedicated football ecosystem that combines social networking, messaging, content, live experiences, and commerce into a single connected platform.

OleOle - Where Fans Kick Off

Chief Technology Officer (CTO)

Founding Technical Leadership Role Rust Real-Time Systems Social AI Payments

Please read the full job description before applying.

We are not looking for a traditional corporate CTO.

We are looking for a hands-on technical leader who still builds, ships, reviews architecture, and understands modern product engineering at scale.

This role is for someone who combines strong engineering judgment with startup execution ability - someone comfortable moving between backend architecture, real-time systems, infrastructure, product strategy, and technical leadership.

About the Role

OleOle is building a football-focused social network and super app combining:

Real-time social feeds and microblogging

Messaging and mobile communication

TikTok-style short-form video

Live scores and sports engagement

AI-powered translation and football history

Rewards, payments, and future crypto infrastructure

This role may evolve into a co-founder-level position for the right person.

You will define the long-term technical architecture of the company while also helping build and ship the platform alongside the engineering team.

We are not looking for a CTO who has spent the last 20 years only managing meetings, vendors, and process.

We are looking for someone who still codes, still understands systems deeply, and still enjoys building.

What We're Looking For

A product-first, systems-oriented technical leader who understands:

Real-time social feeds and recommendation systems

Messaging and event-driven infrastructure

High-performance backend architecture

Frontend/backend integration for modern consumer products

Payments, wallet infrastructure, or financial systems

AI infrastructure and data-driven products

Scalability, reliability, and operational discipline

You do not need to be an expert in every area above.

However, you should have strong experience across multiple domains and the ability to make pragmatic technical decisions across a highly ambitious product ecosystem.

Key Responsibilities

Define and lead the long-term technical architecture of the platform

Lead backend architecture and infrastructure strategy using Rust-based systems

Help build scalable systems supporting feeds, messaging, live updates, video, and data infrastructure

Oversee engineering direction across backend, frontend, infrastructure, and product systems

Partner closely with leadership on product and company strategy

Establish engineering culture, hiring standards, and technical execution processes

Work directly with engineers on architecture reviews, tradeoffs, and implementation decisions

Help design future financial infrastructure including rewards, wallets, payments, and crypto-related systems

Support AI-powered systems including translation, recommendation, search, and football history infrastructure

Ensure scalability, reliability, performance, and security across all systems

Technical Areas Involved

Rust backend infrastructure

Real-time systems and asynchronous architecture

APIs, event-driven systems, and distributed services

Messaging and feed infrastructure

Video and media systems

AI and data infrastructure

Payment and wallet systems

SSR and SEO-focused architecture

High-scale consumer product engineering

What Makes Someone Successful in This Role

You have personally designed and operated production systems

You still enjoy building and solving technical problems directly

You can explain architectural tradeoffs clearly and pragmatically

You understand how consumer platforms scale technically and operationally

You focus on execution and shipping, not unnecessary complexity

You are comfortable operating in ambiguous startup environments

You know when simplicity is the correct engineering decision

You can lead engineers without becoming disconnected from the technology

We value real-world system ownership, technical depth, execution ability, and engineering judgment significantly more than keyword-heavy resumes.

Compensation & Structure

This role is currently structured as deferred compensation.

All current team members - including leadership, engineers, designers, and product teams - are currently working under the same structure while the company secures funding.

This is not unpaid work.

Compensation is intended to convert into a normalized salary structure post-funding, in addition to:

Significant equity ownership

Long-term token participation

Founding-level influence over the company and platform

We want to be fully transparent:

There is real startup risk

Fundraising timelines are unpredictable

Building at this stage requires resilience, ownership, and long-term thinking

At the same time, this is an opportunity to help architect and build one of the most ambitious consumer platforms in global football from the earliest stages.

OleOle - Where Fans Kick Off

Qualifications

Your Background

7-15+ years of software engineering and technical leadership experience, ideally within startups or high-growth consumer technology platforms

Strong hands-on engineering background with active involvement in architecture, systems design, and production codebases

Significant experience building and scaling modern consumer platforms involving real-time systems, high concurrency, and large-scale user engagement

Strong production Rust experience building asynchronous backend systems and distributed infrastructure

Deep understanding of backend architecture, APIs, event-driven systems, databases, caching, and scalable infrastructure design

Experience building or operating one or more of the following:
Social feeds and microblogging systems
Messaging or real-time communication platforms
TikTok-style video or media infrastructure
Financial, wallet, fintech, or gambling infrastructure
AI-powered consumer products
Large-scale SEO or content infrastructure

Ability to make pragmatic technical tradeoffs balancing scalability, performance, speed, maintainability, and operational simplicity

Experience leading and mentoring engineering teams while remaining deeply technical and hands-on

Comfortable operating in fast-moving startup environments with ambiguity, evolving priorities, and limited process

Strong communication skills with the ability to explain architectural decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Strong entrepreneurial judgment, ownership mentality, and execution focus

What Makes Someone Successful in This Role

You have personally designed and operated production systems at scale
You still enjoy building and solving technical problems directly
You focus on execution, shipping, and long-term maintainability
You value simplicity and practical engineering over unnecessary complexity
You are comfortable taking ownership without requiring constant direction
You understand how modern consumer products scale technically and operationally
You can lead engineers without becoming disconnected from the technology

Strong Plus

Experience with Rust-based consumer platforms
Experience with distributed systems and event-driven architectures
Experience with feeds, messaging, streaming, or recommendation systems
Experience with payments, crypto, wallet infrastructure, or gambling systems
Experience with AI infrastructure, search, recommendation, or translation systems
Startup leadership experience building products from zero to one
Existing network within startup, venture capital, or fundraising ecosystems
Passion for football, sports media, or global fan communities

We value real-world system ownership, technical depth, execution ability, and engineering judgment significantly more than keyword-heavy resumes.

OleOle - Where Fans Kick Off

Additional Information

Building a platform like OleOle is difficult by design.

We are not looking for people who avoid hard technical problems - we are looking for builders who are energized by solving them.

What We Value

Creative problem solvers who are willing to challenge assumptions, propose new ideas, and help build better systems rather than simply repeating existing patterns

Engineers who can adapt across a broad range of technologies, infrastructure challenges, and evolving product requirements

People who are comfortable operating in fast-moving startup environments with ambiguity, shifting priorities, and limited process

Strong entrepreneurial judgment with the ability to work independently and take ownership without requiring constant direction or micromanagement

Builders who focus on practical execution, scalability, and product quality rather than unnecessary complexity

Engineers who embrace difficult challenges and enjoy helping shape products from the ground floor

Location & Work Environment

OleOle is based in Austin, Texas, although the team currently operates remotely while the company completes its fundraising process.

We are a privately held company building a globally ambitious football platform with a distributed international team.

OleOle - Where Fans Kick Off