Rust Foundation hires Ubiratan (Ubi) Soares as second infrastructure engineer

The Rust Foundation announced on February 16, 2026 that Ubiratan Soares, known as "Ubi," has joined the Technology Team as an Infrastructure Engineer. Ubi is the Foundation’s second Infrastructure Engineer and "joins the Rust Foundation as our second Infrastructure Engineer, providing much-needed support to the Rust project and its infrastructure, and collaborates closely with fellow Rust Foundation Infrastructure Engineer, Marco Ieni," the Foundation said in its post.

The job description and Foundation materials lay out clear operational duties for the role. "As a member of the Technology Team, Ubi will help ensure that the infrastructure supporting Rust and related projects is reliable, efficient, productive, and secure," the announcement states. The Foundation adds that he "will be responsible for the operations of all current and future infrastructure, managing existing tools and new developments while working directly with the Rust Project Infrastructure team in their daily activities." The original recruitment posting stressed collaboration across the Foundation, the Rust Project Infrastructure volunteers, and the Director of Technology, and set community expectations such as participating in open discussions in Zulip and triaging issues on GitHub.

The hire follows a recruitment round that closed on "8:00pm, 26th Oct 2025 GMT," according to the job posting, and comes as the Foundation and Project prepare for two stated 2026 priorities. "The Rust Foundation and Project infrastructure will have two primary focus areas as we head into 2026 - security and efficiency," the job posting said. The posting also included an explicit application policy: "If it is determined that responses to application questions are AI-generated and not the applicant’s own words, the application will be immediately rejected."

Ubi brings a technical and community background rooted in São Paulo and Barcelona. Born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, he earned a degree at Universidade de São Paulo and "started coding for a living as a Mobile Software Engineer in 2010," later becoming a specialist in the Android/native ecosystem, leading the Android community in São Paulo and speaking at technical conferences. He has lived in Spain since 2019 and, on his personal page, states "I’m a Software Engineer and technologist born in São Paulo, Brazil. Nowadays, I live in Barcelona, Spain, and work as an Infrastructue Engineer at the Rust Foundation, helping the Rust Project infrastructure get a bit better every day." He discovered Rust in 2018, began actively using it in 2023 and "contributed to open-source projects before joining the Foundation full-time." Ubi writes plainly of his commitment to the language: "I’m all-in on Rust for the years to come."

The Rust Foundation, formed in 2021 as an independent non-profit to steward the language, amplified the hire across social channels; its LinkedIn post, from an account with 20,353 followers, invited the community to welcome Ubi and referenced an OxideWorks graphic. With the Foundation and Project describing infrastructure work as a joint effort and the team characterized as "small but mission-critical," Ubi’s appointment is positioned as a concrete reinforcement as the community heads into a year focused on security and efficiency.