8 ms·

Most of Rust job offers are in crypto

56 points by pawelkobojek 4y ago

rvz 4y ago
yes.
rustdeveloper 4y ago
I was looking for a rust job recently and got the same impression that most of them are in crypto :|
yakubin 4y ago
Unfortunately. Similar to Haskell. While with Rust it can be justified by its novelty and status as a meme, Haskell has been here since 1990. Maybe it's because it's hard to attract talent in that space without offering niche, cool tools that are hard to find elsewhere?
- 0des 4y ago
  also coq, from what charles hoskinson says
- woah 4y ago
  Maybe it’s because crypto actually needs the advanced features and correctness that Rust provides, while language doesn’t matter for most of your basic CRUD jobs so people use JS or whatever
  - ausbah 4y ago
    doesn't seem like Rust is a silver bullet for preventing crypto hacks
    - tromp 4y ago
      (Ethereum) Smart Contracts are usually written in Solidity, not Rust...
      - alexeldeib 4y ago
        Solana uses Rust/C++ to compile to an ebpf target, fwiw.
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      Is it a hack if the contract programmatically allows you to do it? Or is it a hack if you didn't understand the scope of your contract as you wrote it, and are now upset someone executed on it in a way you didn't expect?
  - bb88 4y ago
    If you choose to go through the effort, Haskell can be shown to be provably correct -- that is in a mathematical sense of the term "prove" -- similar to Ada/SPARK. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4077970/can-haskell-functions-be-proved-model-checked-verified-with-correctness-properti https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4077970/can-haskell-func... AIUI, similar work is being made to Rust to make it have similar provable properties.
    - Iv 4y ago
      Thing is, in Rust, you can't choose not to go through the effort. The borrow checker forces you to do so.
  - JohnHaugeland 4y ago
    crypto gets hacked much too often to pretend that pointer safety somehow does something useful for them
- IshKebab 4y ago
  I think Haskell jobs aren't common because Haskell isn't widely used. Rust is much more widely used but it's also much newer so most uses are from people already in companies starting new projects. Most of those projects are probably still minor and haven't got to the point of needing whole new employees to work just on them. Where I work we started a fairly big Rust project a couple of years ago and only recently put "Rust" on a job advert.
my69thaccount 4y ago
This doesn't seem to adjust for the programming language, it might be the case across the development ecosystem.
- pawelkobojek 4y ago
  It's a valid point, however I don't feel like there's a lot of discussion in e.g. python or JavaScript crowd around it. The post addresses the common concern within Rust community by approximating an answer to the question in title.
- rustdeveloper 4y ago
  I didn’t find so many crypto job offers for python. But your right, I’m curious how it looks for go or cpp.
felixgallo 4y ago
There's plenty that aren't (disclaimer: I work at Amazon, in a different area) https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=rust&loc_query= https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=rust&loc_query=
sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
It would be funny if the crypto bubble burst and took the rust bubble with it.
- rustdeveloper 4y ago
  I don’t see this happening. If you know rust you can use it elsewhere.
- pornel 4y ago
  Cryptobubble definitely had a part in subsidizing early expansion of Rust's crate ecosystem and first jobs, but I think at this point Rust has grown and matured so much that it's not dependent on any single thing. I know Cloudflare is depending heavily on Rust in its services. AWS is invested too. It's used at Dropbox, ByteDance, Canonical. It has already made its way into being part of infrastructure in many companies, and there aren't many alternatives for it, so there's momentum to keep it going. Even in this sample of explicitly Rust-specific jobs that "most" is already close to a half, and the sample isn't including jobs that use Rust alongside other languages (which in my experience is common, since Rust is good for libraries/plug-ins/components/low-level utilities).
- dgellow 4y ago
  That would be really sad, I’m not sure why you would say something like that. You can express dislike about (part of) the rust community but why would you wish Rust to lose traction? Even if you don’t like or care about the language it is a fantastic addition to the world of programming languages (even just from a research/academic/intellectual point of view), and push for a healthy competition in the world of system programming, something that benefits all of us.
- gary17the 4y ago
  > It would be funny if the crypto bubble burst and took the rust bubble with it. It's probably not likely at all. While Rust's correctness guarantees through ownership checking can be approximated by other programming languages through garbage collectors, it is not a widely understood fact that Rust mutability checking is also a great tool for multi-threaded programming, very challenging to get right even by veteran programmers. On top of that, Rust not only features syntax that's quite modern and ergonomic (analogous to Swift) with elements of functional programming, but Rust also offers modern abstraction-based programming constructs through traits (analogous to Swift Protocol-Oriented Programming). Even the ever C-advocating Linus Torvalds has already agreed to allow Rust as a second language within the Linux kernel. IMHO, Rust is not just a bubble - it will probably only keep growing in popularity.
jasfi 4y ago
A lot of new code is being written for crypto projects.
- pawelkobojek 4y ago
  Sure, but there's a prevalent theme within Rust community that its job market is overweighted towards blockchain. I'm not sure if that's the case with other langs out there.
  - jasfi 4y ago
    I think new languages are often picked for completely new projects. Status.im chose Nim, for example. It's the perfect time to try something new.
inamberclad 4y ago
Lots of Rust animosity in here. What's wrong with it? In places where C/C++ has been the standard, Rust is many times more fun, quick, and easy. It lets you implement higher level control flows (iterators, recursion, multithreading, maps) much more easily and reliably than the aforementioned languages while still allowing for byte level access when required. Its library system is a billion times more ergonomic than C or C++, though I wish it allowed for easier dynamic linking to system libs (just because that's historically the way libraries have been part of distributions). These are all good qualities. It does have weighty syntax and compile times are slow, but so does C++. I can't speak about whether it's really better than a language like Python or Haskell, but I don't think Rust targets the same problem space.
- bsder 4y ago
  > Lots of Rust animosity in here. What's wrong with it? The use of Rust in crypto is a direct attack on the tribe of C/C++. Lots of crypto people are loudly saying "C/C++ is inferior to Rust" and putting real money down on that position.
  - sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
    > crypto > real money Not sure if sarcasm or...
    - bsder 4y ago
      Heh. Didn't think about it that way. I'll remember to put "fake money" in quotes next time. However, the crypto people genuinely believe that they have something worth stealing and that Rust helps keep what they have from getting stolen. That is a direct downvote by highly motivated and self-interested actors against C/C++.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
eftychis 4y ago
Maybe because most of the new "tech" startups/jobs -- that care more about language than other startup areas -- are in "crypto"/Web3? P.S. Also, as a cryptographer: writing "high level" cryptography code in anything besides Rust is an unnecessary pain honestly. It just makes the work saner and manageable. Think of it like writing C with another set of eyes looking over you for mistakes.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  "Startups creating new money systems choose language with safer defaults" — what a headline, right?
TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
First off, this is bullshit. # job advertisements for 'rust' in the title != Company's searching for Rust Developers # job advertisements for rust != # of developers using rust for non crypto shit. I'd just like to point out those facts for people devolving the conversation in to all crypto is rust and rust is crypto and they will burn together. Also, how about the fact that fast, concurrent and safe is exactly what the blockchain needs? Everyone who's coded in solidity (Javascript) or vyper (Python) for the ETH ecosystem knows that the constraints of the blockchain show those languages flaws(Difference?).
- pawelkobojek 4y ago
  Co-author here. I think 'bullshit' is a little of an overstatement. I agree it's not a definite answer at all but I think it's quite an approximation of how the job market in Rust looks like. Moreover, it's not a rant against it, we addressed a common belief within the Rust community without stating a judgement whether it's good or bad thing.
  - TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
    Sorry man, I didn't have my morning coffee yet. Well researched and great job lol. I guess i was railing against the hate on rust in the comments section, which in actuality had nothing to do with your analysis.
snidane 4y ago
Good. Finally one positive impact crypto has on the world. After it all crashes, hopefully these rust coders will find their way into traditional finance and tech and displace C++.
- qualudeheart 4y ago
  Each crypto market crash has only been a temporary set back. Market cap could drop 75% and still bounce back within the year. The hyper-competitive and trustless nature of crypto rewards the most elite projects staffed by +4 SD minds. It’s like how Quant funds are a darwinian bloodbath. The only way crypto is going away for good is replacement by vastly better technology or assets.
  - snidane 4y ago
    Crypto is just what you get in a zero interest rate world. That's how it started (fear of money inflation). With interest rates in steady state rates, people would choose wisely if it's better to stash money into a regular savings account or into void of cryptoschemes with occassional jackpot. I agree - the replacement is better assets, such as cash. When it is priced reasonably again.
    - qualudeheart 4y ago
      Those are good points. I haven’t seen much discussion of interest rates in crypto circles even with all the shady 10% APY staking programs designed to compete with savings accounts.
NickM 4y ago
Number of openings is very much not the same as the number of jobs that exist; the article conflates the two, but it's entirely possible that many devs just don't want to work for crypto companies, so crypto job openings stay unfilled (and therefore visible) for longer than other types of Rust positions.
- est31 4y ago
  I think you have a point. But the number of openings is a way easier thing to measure than the number of jobs, because you can just scrape public job boards. I think the goal of the post was to bring at least some data to the many anecdotes about Rust being so permeated by crypto (and personal experience agrees with that).
qualudeheart 4y ago
My gf is an embedded systems engineer using Rust. Is there data on embedded Rust jobs?
- ostenning 4y ago
  +1 been using Rust for a commercial embedded product and its been really great.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago
My impression is that the crypto companies face scepticism when their recruiters reach out. So why not try to counteract that with the huge enthusiasm for rust
jazzythom 4y ago

56 points by pawelkobojek 4y ago

rvz 4y ago

yes.

rustdeveloper 4y ago

I was looking for a rust job recently and got the same impression that most of them are in crypto :|

yakubin 4y ago

Unfortunately. Similar to Haskell. While with Rust it can be justified by its novelty and status as a meme, Haskell has been here since 1990. Maybe it's because it's hard to attract talent in that space without offering niche, cool tools that are hard to find elsewhere?

0des 4y ago
also coq, from what charles hoskinson says
woah 4y ago
Maybe it’s because crypto actually needs the advanced features and correctness that Rust provides, while language doesn’t matter for most of your basic CRUD jobs so people use JS or whatever
- ausbah 4y ago
  doesn't seem like Rust is a silver bullet for preventing crypto hacks
  - tromp 4y ago
    (Ethereum) Smart Contracts are usually written in Solidity, not Rust...
    - alexeldeib 4y ago
      Solana uses Rust/C++ to compile to an ebpf target, fwiw.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    Is it a hack if the contract programmatically allows you to do it? Or is it a hack if you didn't understand the scope of your contract as you wrote it, and are now upset someone executed on it in a way you didn't expect?
- bb88 4y ago
  If you choose to go through the effort, Haskell can be shown to be provably correct -- that is in a mathematical sense of the term "prove" -- similar to Ada/SPARK. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4077970/can-haskell-functions-be-proved-model-checked-verified-with-correctness-properti https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4077970/can-haskell-func... AIUI, similar work is being made to Rust to make it have similar provable properties.
  - Iv 4y ago
    Thing is, in Rust, you can't choose not to go through the effort. The borrow checker forces you to do so.
- JohnHaugeland 4y ago
  crypto gets hacked much too often to pretend that pointer safety somehow does something useful for them
IshKebab 4y ago
I think Haskell jobs aren't common because Haskell isn't widely used. Rust is much more widely used but it's also much newer so most uses are from people already in companies starting new projects. Most of those projects are probably still minor and haven't got to the point of needing whole new employees to work just on them. Where I work we started a fairly big Rust project a couple of years ago and only recently put "Rust" on a job advert.

my69thaccount 4y ago

This doesn't seem to adjust for the programming language, it might be the case across the development ecosystem.

pawelkobojek 4y ago
It's a valid point, however I don't feel like there's a lot of discussion in e.g. python or JavaScript crowd around it. The post addresses the common concern within Rust community by approximating an answer to the question in title.
rustdeveloper 4y ago
I didn’t find so many crypto job offers for python. But your right, I’m curious how it looks for go or cpp.

felixgallo 4y ago

There's plenty that aren't (disclaimer: I work at Amazon, in a different area) https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=rust&loc_query= https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?base_query=rust&loc_query=

sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago

It would be funny if the crypto bubble burst and took the rust bubble with it.

rustdeveloper 4y ago
I don’t see this happening. If you know rust you can use it elsewhere.
pornel 4y ago
Cryptobubble definitely had a part in subsidizing early expansion of Rust's crate ecosystem and first jobs, but I think at this point Rust has grown and matured so much that it's not dependent on any single thing. I know Cloudflare is depending heavily on Rust in its services. AWS is invested too. It's used at Dropbox, ByteDance, Canonical. It has already made its way into being part of infrastructure in many companies, and there aren't many alternatives for it, so there's momentum to keep it going. Even in this sample of explicitly Rust-specific jobs that "most" is already close to a half, and the sample isn't including jobs that use Rust alongside other languages (which in my experience is common, since Rust is good for libraries/plug-ins/components/low-level utilities).
dgellow 4y ago
That would be really sad, I’m not sure why you would say something like that. You can express dislike about (part of) the rust community but why would you wish Rust to lose traction? Even if you don’t like or care about the language it is a fantastic addition to the world of programming languages (even just from a research/academic/intellectual point of view), and push for a healthy competition in the world of system programming, something that benefits all of us.
gary17the 4y ago
> It would be funny if the crypto bubble burst and took the rust bubble with it. It's probably not likely at all. While Rust's correctness guarantees through ownership checking can be approximated by other programming languages through garbage collectors, it is not a widely understood fact that Rust mutability checking is also a great tool for multi-threaded programming, very challenging to get right even by veteran programmers. On top of that, Rust not only features syntax that's quite modern and ergonomic (analogous to Swift) with elements of functional programming, but Rust also offers modern abstraction-based programming constructs through traits (analogous to Swift Protocol-Oriented Programming). Even the ever C-advocating Linus Torvalds has already agreed to allow Rust as a second language within the Linux kernel. IMHO, Rust is not just a bubble - it will probably only keep growing in popularity.

jasfi 4y ago

A lot of new code is being written for crypto projects.

pawelkobojek 4y ago
Sure, but there's a prevalent theme within Rust community that its job market is overweighted towards blockchain. I'm not sure if that's the case with other langs out there.
- jasfi 4y ago
  I think new languages are often picked for completely new projects. Status.im chose Nim, for example. It's the perfect time to try something new.

inamberclad 4y ago

Lots of Rust animosity in here. What's wrong with it? In places where C/C++ has been the standard, Rust is many times more fun, quick, and easy. It lets you implement higher level control flows (iterators, recursion, multithreading, maps) much more easily and reliably than the aforementioned languages while still allowing for byte level access when required. Its library system is a billion times more ergonomic than C or C++, though I wish it allowed for easier dynamic linking to system libs (just because that's historically the way libraries have been part of distributions). These are all good qualities. It does have weighty syntax and compile times are slow, but so does C++. I can't speak about whether it's really better than a language like Python or Haskell, but I don't think Rust targets the same problem space.

bsder 4y ago
> Lots of Rust animosity in here. What's wrong with it? The use of Rust in crypto is a direct attack on the tribe of C/C++. Lots of crypto people are loudly saying "C/C++ is inferior to Rust" and putting real money down on that position.
- sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
  > crypto > real money Not sure if sarcasm or...
  - bsder 4y ago
    Heh. Didn't think about it that way. I'll remember to put "fake money" in quotes next time. However, the crypto people genuinely believe that they have something worth stealing and that Rust helps keep what they have from getting stolen. That is a direct downvote by highly motivated and self-interested actors against C/C++.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

eftychis 4y ago

Maybe because most of the new "tech" startups/jobs -- that care more about language than other startup areas -- are in "crypto"/Web3? P.S. Also, as a cryptographer: writing "high level" cryptography code in anything besides Rust is an unnecessary pain honestly. It just makes the work saner and manageable. Think of it like writing C with another set of eyes looking over you for mistakes.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
"Startups creating new money systems choose language with safer defaults" — what a headline, right?

TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago

First off, this is bullshit. # job advertisements for 'rust' in the title != Company's searching for Rust Developers # job advertisements for rust != # of developers using rust for non crypto shit. I'd just like to point out those facts for people devolving the conversation in to all crypto is rust and rust is crypto and they will burn together. Also, how about the fact that fast, concurrent and safe is exactly what the blockchain needs? Everyone who's coded in solidity (Javascript) or vyper (Python) for the ETH ecosystem knows that the constraints of the blockchain show those languages flaws(Difference?).

pawelkobojek 4y ago
Co-author here. I think 'bullshit' is a little of an overstatement. I agree it's not a definite answer at all but I think it's quite an approximation of how the job market in Rust looks like. Moreover, it's not a rant against it, we addressed a common belief within the Rust community without stating a judgement whether it's good or bad thing.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  Sorry man, I didn't have my morning coffee yet. Well researched and great job lol. I guess i was railing against the hate on rust in the comments section, which in actuality had nothing to do with your analysis.

snidane 4y ago

Good. Finally one positive impact crypto has on the world. After it all crashes, hopefully these rust coders will find their way into traditional finance and tech and displace C++.

qualudeheart 4y ago
Each crypto market crash has only been a temporary set back. Market cap could drop 75% and still bounce back within the year. The hyper-competitive and trustless nature of crypto rewards the most elite projects staffed by +4 SD minds. It’s like how Quant funds are a darwinian bloodbath. The only way crypto is going away for good is replacement by vastly better technology or assets.
- snidane 4y ago
  Crypto is just what you get in a zero interest rate world. That's how it started (fear of money inflation). With interest rates in steady state rates, people would choose wisely if it's better to stash money into a regular savings account or into void of cryptoschemes with occassional jackpot. I agree - the replacement is better assets, such as cash. When it is priced reasonably again.
  - qualudeheart 4y ago
    Those are good points. I haven’t seen much discussion of interest rates in crypto circles even with all the shady 10% APY staking programs designed to compete with savings accounts.

NickM 4y ago

Number of openings is very much not the same as the number of jobs that exist; the article conflates the two, but it's entirely possible that many devs just don't want to work for crypto companies, so crypto job openings stay unfilled (and therefore visible) for longer than other types of Rust positions.

est31 4y ago
I think you have a point. But the number of openings is a way easier thing to measure than the number of jobs, because you can just scrape public job boards. I think the goal of the post was to bring at least some data to the many anecdotes about Rust being so permeated by crypto (and personal experience agrees with that).

qualudeheart 4y ago

My gf is an embedded systems engineer using Rust. Is there data on embedded Rust jobs?

ostenning 4y ago
+1 been using Rust for a commercial embedded product and its been really great.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

GoOnThenDoTell 4y ago

My impression is that the crypto companies face scepticism when their recruiters reach out. So why not try to counteract that with the huge enthusiasm for rust

jazzythom 4y ago