Rust is a useful search term, but it is not a complete hiring brief. A developer building a network service, a smart contract engineer and a low-level systems engineer may share a language while needing very different experience. Start by separating language familiarity from the work your hire will own.
Describe the system before the candidate
Write a short description of what the engineer will change and what could go wrong. Is the work latency-sensitive? Does it involve consensus, untrusted inputs, concurrent services or an unfamiliar codebase? Which parts of the system can the person learn on the job, and where do you need independent judgement immediately?
For a protocol role, you might prioritise distributed systems reasoning. For a service role, operating and debugging production software may matter more. Be explicit about these differences so sourcing does not become a search for the longest list of matching keywords.
Separate three kinds of evidence
- Language: Can they explain ownership, error handling and concurrency choices in code they understand?
- Domain: Can they reason about the assumptions and failure modes of your kind of system?
- Delivery: Can they describe how they test, review, ship and maintain changes with a team?
A candidate with limited Rust tenure but deep relevant systems experience may be worth assessing. Conversely, years of Rust experience do not automatically establish the domain knowledge your role requires. Decide in advance which gaps your team can support.
Review a change together
Use a small, self-contained code example or an anonymised design change. Ask the candidate to explain the intended behaviour, identify unclear assumptions and propose useful tests. Let them consult documentation if that reflects the real work.
For a concurrent component, discuss cancellation, shared state and failure handling. For security-sensitive code, ask how inputs and trust boundaries should be examined. The goal is to observe their investigation process; a rushed puzzle may reveal little about maintainable engineering.
Use public work carefully
Open-source contributions can create useful discussion material, but a public contribution history should not be a requirement unless it is genuinely necessary for the role. Engineers may have worked on private code or have limited time outside their employment. Offer equivalent ways to demonstrate experience.
When reviewing a contribution, ask what the person changed, which feedback they received and what they would now do differently. Contribution counts and popularity are not substitutes for understanding the work.
Build a brief that attracts the right people
Explain the system, the team's engineering practices and the scope of ownership. State working-location requirements, interview stages and the expected assessment effort. Distinguish mandatory domain experience from desirable familiarity with particular libraries.
Explore our blockchain and Rust recruitment focus or use the interview scorecard guide to structure your decision.