Hi all,
I've been part of the Rust community for a long time, and have had a bunch of larger roles with Rust at startups and larger companies. I'd like to give back to the Rust community a little as a thanks, and would like to boost some projects. I know that especially for smaller projects it's difficult to find someone to help out since they can't yet afford a full time Rust dev, so they end up falling through the cracks; meanwhile a little help can go a long way.
Some of the things I've helped with include:
- cleaning up and restructuring codebases
- code reviews and technical audits
- helping figure out perf issues and overall architecture
- mentoring and long-term fractional IC
- getting unstuck in particularly difficult Rust related problems
- helping manage teams as a part-time manager, helping teams through a difficult time project-wise, etc
- fixing build systems and dev pipelines
I'm especially interested in small, well-defined pieces of paid work that might be difficult for a small team, single developer, or bootstrapped project to justify hiring someone for more permanently.
I'd like to do some of this specifically within the Rust community, as I know particularly smaller projects and teams that don't necessarily have a large engineering budget could be having a hard time finding someone to do this kind of work.
A lot of people are only starting out in the community, or don't have VC backing, so I hope this can help support the Rust community, especially the smaller companies, people bootstrapping their startups on their own, etc.
I'm just not sure how to put the word out, how to make people aware this is a thing, etc.
What's the best way to make this kind of help available? Are there particular places in the Rust ecosystem where people tend to look for this sort of paid for, but easily affordable assistance, or ways you've seen these kinds of collaborations get started?
I'd love to hear how people have approached it, either as someone offering help or as someone who's needed it.
Thanks!