Hi everyone,

some of you might remember my post from a few months ago where I wrote about contributing full-time to the Rust compiler, being close to team membership, but struggling to make it financially sustainable while living in Russia

A lot has happened since then, so here is a short update and a link to a longer blog post with details, numbers and answers to common questions

TLDR

• I kept contributing consistently (171 contributions so far)
• I could not relocate or take full-time offers
• I officially became a member of the Rust compiler team
• I returned to my previous job teaching IT to kids - it gives me enough financial stability and time to keep working on the compiler

Full blog post: https://kivooeo.github.io/blog/first/

If you are interested, feel free to ask questions in the comments

I want to collect questions that come up here and add them to the blog over time (feel free to ask in DM as well), especially if they might help others who want to contribute to the open source or find themselves in similar life situations

Thanks again to everyone who supported me back then. Your comments helped more than you probably imagine

Happy holidays and happy New Year to all of you! <3

Update: I'm honestly overwhelmed and need to share this. Shortly after I published my blog post, someone anonymously sent $1,500 via Solana

Whoever you are - I wish I could thank you properly. This is about 3 months of teaching salary for me, but it's so much more than that. It's someone believing in this work. It's a reminder that what I'm doing matters to people beyond just lines of code. I'm genuinely moved by this