The Rust Programming Language

I used to work in a boring enterprise Java position back around March, when the whole pandemic situation suddenly got real crazy and the layoffs rolled in. I got laid off too.

It was nothing special or interesting, and it only paid about $5/h, but that's still considered good money where I live (a crappy provincial Russian city).

At that point I've been toying with Rust for about three years, had a few personal projects, but nothing huge. I was quite in love with the language, but didn't think it would be realistic to get a job working with it.

Regardless, I had to scramble fast to find a new job. I had Rust mentioned somewhere on my resume, and someone actually contacted me about a Rust job, so I jumped at the opportunity. Somehow I managed to get the job despite having no experience in that particular field.

Not only this saved me from a personal crisis, but it paid better than the shitty Java job I had, and relieved me of having to use a language I couldn't care less for.

Some six months later I jumped jobs again for another Rust position. I'm blown away by how quickly the demand for Rust engineers has grown in this year alone. In Russia in particular this demand is matched with pay that far outpaces anything I could've ever earned doing Java.

Not to mention that the projects Rust is usually being used for are particularly technically challenging and demanding, which is great if you feel like your skills as an engineer are underutilized or misplaced.

So, to all the people behind Rust and its wonderful ecosystem, to all the incredibly welcoming people in this community - a heartfelt thank you. I would've been in a far worse place mentally and financially if it weren't for you all.