Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2026)

Proxybase | Backend Systems Engineer (Rust) | Remote, Global | Full-Time

Hi HN, I’m the founder of Proxybase [0]. We’re building a SOCKS5 proxy network focused on transparency and ethical sourcing in the residential proxy market. A quick note for anyone who applied last month: thank you to everyone who reached out. We received far more strong applications than expected, and between running day-to-day operations and working through the backlog, we took much longer to reply than we should have. If you applied last month and haven’t heard back yet, I’m sorry for the delay. We’re actively reviewing those applications alongside this new batch.

Why Proxybase? The residential proxy industry has a rough history. Some providers rely on hidden background scrapers bundled into TV firmware or mobile apps, while others use payout systems that can hold provider funds for months.

We’re trying to build something better: Open-source clients: Our GUI [1] and CLI [2] are fully open source, so anyone can inspect and audit what runs on their device. Explicit consent: Providers knowingly opt in. No stealth bundling. Fair, fast payouts: The minimum payout is $1, sent directly to provider wallets in USD stablecoins. We do not hold funds to earn interest on them.

We’re hiring a Backend Systems Engineer with Rust experience to help build:

Asynchronous SOCKS5 routing infrastructure, Daemon and node orchestration, Automated bandwidth-allocation pipelines

Stack: Rust, Tokio, Axum, SOCKS5, Linux systemd daemons, SQLite

Location: Fully remote, async-friendly, flexible time zones Compensation: Competitive salary plus equity. USD or stablecoin payment options are available.

If you’re interested in building infrastructure for an industry that needs better standards, email jobs@proxybase.xyz with your GitHub, résumé, and a short note about what you’ve been working on recently.

I’ll also be around in the comments to answer questions and hear feedback.

[0]: https://proxybase.xyz

[1]: https://github.com/proxybasehq/proxybase-gui

[2]: https://github.com/proxybasehq/proxybase-cli

It would be good to indicate if you are open to engineers in Europe or the UK and what hourly salary they should be expecting. The other locations you list are considerably cheaper and might indicate you aren't paying enough to support talent from these geographies.

Stpkr Technologies | Noida, India (Delhi NCR) | ONSITE | Multiple roles

Stpkr Technologies is hiring for the following roles to build the next generation of wearable devices.

We are currently looking for the following roles but we are also open to interviewing any candidates who feel like they will do their best work here - even if your skillset/experience doesn't fit the current defined roles. Our current team doesn't fit the conventional mold, and we don't expect our future hires will either. If you don't fit the advertised roles, just send us a mail per the same process with whatever job title would fit you the best.

Work is in person near Noida Sector 18, walking distance from Sector 18 Metro Station. We prefer in office work, and for you to be located within Delhi/NCR, Pay is competitive (9-12 LPA), and there are opportunities to earn meaningful equity down the line. We prefer current and recent undergraduates for our roles. If you are still in college we welcome you to apply nonetheless provided you can work as an intern for us in person. Super-flexible overall and all of our current team started out as interns. We are not flexible on in-office work because of operational requirements - please do not apply if you can't relocate/work from office.

Hiring across OS, software, and hardware. AI policy across all roles: you should be able to do the work without AI, and much faster with it.

Systems Engineer - Everything at the OS layer. You've rooted phones, flashed custom ROMs, broken and fixed Linux for fun. Comfortable in C/C++. GitHub with kernel-adjacent or LineageOS-type projects a plus. Stack: Android, Linux, C, C++, Java. Filter: send us something you built where you had to fight the OS or hardware.

Hardware Engineer - Bring-up/Debug/Integration - Take EVT/DVT boards and make them work. Comfortable with J-Link and IDE debugging, reading schematics and reference designs. KiCad/Altium/EasyEDA hobby work would make you ideal. PetaLinux experience or hunger to learn it. ECE undergrad fine. Filter: photo of a board you designed or debugged, plus what went wrong.

Hardware Engineer - Power/RF/Wireless - Make the power and RF paths behave on EVT/DVT boards. Hands-on with schematic capture, layout, soldering, scope/logic analyzer. Given two unknowns, you pick one and start measuring. Filter: sensor fusion work, how noise behaves across protocols, and SPI debug chops.

Founder's Office - Work closely with the founder and the rest of the team to manage the day to day and long term affairs of the company, the Man Friday of the company. Must have a decent degree of technical knowledge (we are a tech company after all) and be efficient at administrative tasks as well as management. Speed and learning ability are prized here, there will not always be a clear path to the work you have to do here, so you will have to figure some of it out on your own.

To apply, contact arnav@stpkr.in with the subject line "HN - Human" and a brief intro for further communication. Attach any documents you deem useful there. Please include the role you are applying for at the top of the email if it is one of the above mentioned, otherwise whatever role fits you best. Shortlisting will be online, interviews will be in person. We are hiring quickly, expect to hear back from us within 2-3 days of applying. If you don't, assume you will not. If you are using an AI agent to mass apply for jobs and we can tell, then you will not hear back. Use an expensive one :P (reiterating this, because we receive so much AI spam now. Thanks for your time!

Noricum | Senior Backend Engineer, Payments, Ledger & Provable Fairness | REMOTE (2h overlap with US Pacific) | Contract to permanent | $120-160/hr | Start by 14 Sep

I'm the founder of Noricum where we build platforms – currently the money infrastructure, ledger, engine and payment rails behind a pre-launch wagering platform with a Steam skins economy. The games, a cashier and a bet ledger are built and live as a front end, with written specs for the server contract: ledger schema, refusal table, round lifecycle, every game's arithmetic. Processing and licensing are secured. The server does not exist. That is the job. You would own:

- A server-authoritative game engine - seeds, nonces, outcome computation - A double-entry ledger where balance is derived and no client write can change it - Server-side enforcement of every limit and refusal - Payment rails idempotent under duplicated webhooks - Seed custody and the provably-fair lifecycle - An affiliate system with referral attribution and commission payouts

Must have shipped: a double-entry ledger or equivalent money system in production, a payment integration including webhook idempotency, auth and sessions you built and operated, and infrastructure you owned end to end. Provably-fair systems, settlement-side gaming or trading infra, or Steam trade automation all stand out.

Email michael@noricum.io with your start date and a few lines on the last money system you shipped - what it guaranteed, and how you knew it held.