Why (& How) We Built the Rust Foundation Trusted Training Program

When I joined the Rust Foundation back in 2022, one of my early mandates was to explore what the Foundation could do to support Rust education and training. This was listed in my job description right alongside things like “manage communications strategy” and “support member relations”. In other words, one of many exciting areas to dive into!

When my team embarked on this journey in earnest, the lion’s share of our efforts lay in having conversations with providers, doing a lot of listening, and researching various possible manifestations of this topic. My colleague, Program Manager Tina Krauss (an equal driver of this program since she joined our team last year and largely responsible for the operational side), can confirm that we spent a meaningful amount of time in the “figuring this out” phase!

During our evaluation and exploration of the Rust training landscape, what we heard from members offering training and the wider community was consistent: a lot of high-quality Rust training already exists, and the Foundation’s true value right now is holding up excellent examples of Rust training that learners are already benefitting from. In short, there was no formal recognition for the organizations doing Rust training well, and that’s where we stood to provide the most benefit at the moment.

So we got to work carefully and, I’d like to think, with appropriate humility about what we didn’t know yet. Last year, we formed a committee of active Rust training professionals to help us build the standard itself because, frankly, they knew better than we did what quality looks like in practice. We held listening sessions with our own members, gathered feedback, and took the time to get the criteria and process right before we invited anyone to apply.

Today, we launched the Rust Foundation Trusted Training (RFTT) program: an organization-level accreditation for Rust training providers.

Our founding cohort, Mainmatter, Integer 32, Doulos, Wyliodrin, & Ferrous Systems, are organizations that have been doing serious Rust training work for years. We’re proud to recognize them as the first RFTT providers, and genuinely grateful to them for trusting us enough to go through the process first.

To be fully transparent: RFTT will generate modest revenue for the Foundation through its application and accreditation fees. Proceeds go toward covering the operational costs of running the program, and in today’s tight open source funding environment, diversification of funding sources is extremely valuable. Covering the costs of running this allows more of our funding to go directly to the Rust Project and the people who build it (check out our GitHub sponsorship page if you’d like to support these hardworking Rust maintainers!)  We think this is an excellent outcome, and we’re grateful to the providers who will make it possible.

RFTT isn’t the only mark of great Rust training, of course. There are excellent trainers and resources across this community, and there always have been. What this does offer is a clear, Foundation-backed signal for those seeking one, and an open door for providers who want to pursue it.

This is just the beginning of the program and what it can be. We’re starting by accrediting at the organization level, and we’ll see where things go from there. If you’re a learner looking for a training provider the Rust Foundation, feel you can trust, head to rustfoundation.org/rftt. If you’re a training provider interested in applying or if you just have a question about this work, we’d love to hear from you at training@rustfoundation.org.

Stay tuned for a series of spotlights on all of the Rust Foundation Trusted Training Providers!

Read the news announcement here.

A huge thank you also to the RFTT steering committee members: Till Adams (KDAB), Alexandru Radovici (Wyliodrin), Luca Palmieri (Mainmatter), and Carol Nichols (Integer 32), who gave considerable time and expertise to build something the community can trust. They will be involved in reviewing applications going forward. To Tina and the rest of my team involved in this work since the start: none of this would have been possible without you!