RustConf 2025 Interview: Ross Townsend, Lawrence Harvey, Divisional Manager - Rust, Rust NYC

At RustConf 2025 in Seattle, Xander Cesari sits down on behalf of the Rust Project Content Team with Ross Townsend, Divisional Manager for Rust Engineering at Lawrence Harvey and organizer of Rust NYC, the largest Rust user group on Meetup. Ross shares a view of the Rust world from both sides: growing grassroots communities in the UK, Australia, and now New York, and building Rust teams for companies across North America. Topics include: • What makes Rust community events different: welcoming to newcomers at every level, from first-time programmers to pre-1.0 veterans • Rust NYC and Rust East Coast: an oversubscribed meetup, talks on YouTube, and a 1,700-person Discord • What companies actually hire for: the traits of good software engineers, plus a path into Rust from any language background • Open source as a credential: many companies weigh public contributions as heavily as commercial Rust experience, and 60-70% of clients will review your open source code instead of giving a technical test • The state of the market: an embedded Rust boom driven by medical devices, aerospace, and Industry 4.0, with roughly 13-14x the open roles of six months ago • Why embedded is the most accepting on-ramp for C and C++ developers, including the motion-sensitive light-up business card that got one candidate a job • Advice for job seekers: don't give up, use the community, and find the mentor matching happening in Discords across the US Links mentioned: Rust NYC on Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/rust-nyc/ Lawrence Harvey: https://www.lawrenceharvey.com/ Rustlings: https://github.com/rust-lang/rustlings Find Ross: search "Ross the Rust guy" on LinkedIn, or Ross Townsend on Discord Interview conducted by Xander Cesari on behalf of the Rust Project Content Team.