Rust career advice

Hello🙋‍♂️.

I am from India and I started leaning to code last year. I dropped out of academic life. I began my programming journey with html, css, javascript, nodejs... i.e. web development. I taught myself from internet (several websites and udemy courses). Web development is so far interesting and I like it, but I'm not satisfied to be just a web developer.

So in December, 2021 I began learning RUST. I have been learning from official documentation "the book" & my experience is very satisfying. So far my leaning journey is awesome. So many mind blowing conceptions!

I'm also a linux enthusiast (I use manjaro in a daily basis). I enjoy learning how different parts of linux works. Although I don't know everything about linux ! But I enjoy learning.

I do want to make a career in computer programming but I don't have enough resources to pursue a college (or university) degree. Here in India, college degree is mandatory in order to get a job.

I'm looking for advice about how may I make a career in computer programming (using RUST). Probably some remote job or something else. I think by only leaning Rust, I'll not have a job. Perhaps I need to have a domain specific knowledge.

So please kindly advice me. I need to know how to approach life from where I am, what are the skills I have to acquire. etc…

Thank you🙏

2 Likes

Wow, that's a big question :sweat_smile:

There are loads of ways you can go about this, with the direction you choose being a combination of what resources/opportunities you have available to you, your interests, personality, skills, and a healthy dose of luck.

I actually dropped out of my mechanical engineering degree, so I've put more emphasis on being a better programmer and being an expert in my chosen areas because I don't have the automatic recognition a big name university gives you. This works for my corner of the world and the tech industry because being a self-taught programmer is culturally acceptable - it's not like other fields where you would be quite concerned to find out your surgeon had developed their portfolio by experimenting at home in their spare time.

I think the single most beneficial thing I've done for my career is writing articles for programmers online. Things like tutorials, worked examples, walkthroughs of implementing a particular library, techniques for writing unsafe code, and so on. Through that I've been able to put my name out there as someone who is a competent programmer, while also learning valuable skills and developing cool projects.

Oh, and don't just stick to one language or framework. Therein lies the way to stagnation. Always try to keep learning new languages and frameworks and ways of doing things.

5 Likes

There are a lot of different routes to take depending on your interests/values, to reiterate what @Michael-F-Bryan said.

Assuming that finding any kind of job using Rust is your highest priority, maybe start by doing some research on what kind of jobs are available, then building your skills to get some of these. I did a google search and there seems to be a lot of Rust+Solana work right now for freelance, but for full-time employment I got varied results. Also WASM seems to pop up kinda frequently, so maybe combine your existing web skills with your new Rust skills and go that route.

1 Like

What would be the best thing to do right now?

TLDR: Build something to show and be professional.

Make something special of your own and put it out on display. Or at least have it to show people you want to work for. I would suggest creating something "you" have some interest in so you do not burn out. You will harden your rust skill, and become familiar with the "community" as they call "us". As you say you are looking for possible employment, keep your posts here "professional". This forum will give very fast answers to even the most stupid question. And the users for the most part will not insult you if you ask stupid questions. But future employers might care. If you have some patience, you do not have to ask your question. Someone else will. (Note: there are no stupid questions. For example I had a stupid question and waited and saw this post Composition instead of inheritance, and it was not a stupid question after all. But yesterday the way I would have asked the almost same question might have made an employer think twice. )
People like "flash" and "cross platform" and "cloud" if you make it so it can compile and run on phones, computers, and wasm and stores something on social media somewhere that is plus plus plus.

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. We invite you to open a new topic if you have further questions or comments.