# Jon Gjengset

> Jon Gjengset is a principal engineer at Helsing, Rust systems programming educator, and author of 'Rust for Rustaceans' (No Starch Press). He holds a PhD from MIT CSAIL where he built Noria, a streaming dataflow database system offering up to 20x performance improvements. A prolific live-coder and YouTube educator since 2018, Jon co-founded ReadySet (a $29M-funded database startup), contributed to the Rust ecosystem, and teaches at MIT's Missing Semester. Based in Oslo, Norway, he is one of the most respected voices in the Rust community.

- **Role:** Principal Engineer at Helsing
- **Organizations:** Helsing, ReadySet, AWS, MIT CSAIL
- **Nationality:** Norwegian
- **Education:** PhD in Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), MSc in Networked Computer Systems, University College London (UCL), BSc in Information Technology, Bond University, Australia, Bachelor's Degree, University of Oslo
- **Known for:** PhD from MIT CSAIL on distributed systems and dataflow databases (2021), Author of 'Rust for Rustaceans: Idiomatic Programming for Experienced Developers' (No Starch Press, 2021), Co-founder of ReadySet, which raised $29M in funding

## Career timeline

- **2018** — Started live-coding Rust on YouTube and Twitch
- **2021** — Completed PhD at MIT CSAIL; published 'Rust for Rustaceans' via No Starch Press
- **2021** — Co-founded ReadySet with Alana Marzoev, commercializing Noria database research
- **2022** — ReadySet raised $29M in funding
- **2022** — Joined AWS to maintain Rust build infrastructure and lead internal Rust build tooling
- **2023** — Joined Helsing as Principal Engineer (August 2023), relocated to Oslo, Norway
- **2024** — Spoke at Rust Nation UK (March) and EuroRust Vienna (October)
- **2026** — Co-instructing MIT Missing Semester IAP; spoke at Jane Street on mutex performance

## Achievements

- PhD from MIT CSAIL on distributed systems and dataflow databases (2021)
- Author of 'Rust for Rustaceans: Idiomatic Programming for Experienced Developers' (No Starch Press, 2021)
- Co-founder of ReadySet, which raised $29M in funding
- Created Noria: a streaming dataflow system achieving up to 20x performance improvement over MySQL
- Open-source creator of 'inferno' (Rust port of FlameGraph) and 'left-right' concurrency crate
- Rustacean Station podcast co-host
- Principal Engineer at Helsing, applying Rust to safety-critical defense systems
- Led Rust build infrastructure at AWS
- Co-instructor of MIT Missing Semester (2019-present)
- YouTube educator with 'Crust of Rust' series reaching tens of thousands of developers

## Latest updates

- **2026-04** — Co-instructing MIT Missing Semester 2026 IAP
- **2026-01** — Spoke at Jane Street on 'Are Mutexes Slow?' and gave a lightning version at Rustikon
- **2024-12** — Announced transition away from Twitter/X toward Mastodon and other platforms
- **2024-10** — Spoke at EuroRust 2024 in Vienna: 'Through the Fire and the Flames'
- **2024-03** — Spoke at Rust Nation UK 2024: 'Towards Impeccable Rust'
- **2023-08** — Joined Helsing as Principal Engineer, relocated to Oslo, Norway

## Links

- Website: https://thesquareplanet.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonhoo/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/jonhoo
- GitHub: https://github.com/jonhoo
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JonGjengset

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jon-gjengset
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-04-21