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Ask HN: Possible to get Rust job without C++ background?

6 points by jetti ↗ HN
I have been learning Rust in my free time for the past 6 months. I would love to be able to find a job that works with Rust full time as I'm bored with the .NET stack that I have been doing for the past 8 years. My worry is that, from my understanding, many companies are using Rust to replace their C++ code base however, I have very limited C++ experience. Is it worth pursuing Rust in the hopes of landing a job with it? My other thought was to learn Go, as I know there are some Go jobs in my area and they seem don't seem to require C++ knowledge.

6 comments

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phonebanshee
You're overlooking something important: they can't hire C++ people. They just aren't around. Sure, if you're directly competing against someone who has a lot of relevant experience, they're likely going to try hiring the other person first. You're not likely to run up against that in the real world.
dev_north_east
> They just aren't around.

How do you mean?

phonebanshee
I mean that if you're trying to hire people with C++ experience, you're having a very hard time. It's a very small pool to draw from.
steveklabnik
I haven’t seen many jobs that are for explicitly replacing C++ code, for what it’s worth.
jetti
Thanks Steve. I think I'm influenced by what a single company was doing and assumed that many others were doing that same thing. There's a company in Chicago that is trying out Rust by replacing some of their C++ code base with Rust but I don't think they are actively hiring Rust developers.
vkaku
Of Course. But you want to be good at systems/basics.