A veteran Microsoft engineer has commented that he wants to replace his entire C and C++ codebase with Rust by 2030.
Microsoft engineer Galen Hunt has sparked controversy by posting on LinkedIn, a business-focused social networking site, that, 'My goal is to replace all of Microsoft's C and C++ code with Rust by 2030, combining AI and algorithms.'
Principal Software Engineer (CoreAI) | Microsoft Careers | Galen Hunt | 30 Comments
Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/24/microsoft_rust_codebase_migration/
Hunt, an engineer who worked on the development of Microsoft's operating system and Azure Sphere , commented on LinkedIn that Microsoft is hiring for a 'Principal Software Engineer' position. He added, 'My goal is to eliminate all C and C++ code from Microsoft by 2030. Our strategy is to combine AI and algorithms to rewrite Microsoft's largest codebases. Our guiding principle is 'one engineer per month, one million lines of code.''
Regarding the duties of the Principal Software Engineer, he said, 'The purpose of the position is to help strengthen and enhance our infrastructure so that we can translate Microsoft's systems written in C and C++ into Rust.' He added that production-quality coding experience in Rust, with at least three years of experience, is essential, and that experience in compiler, database, and OS implementation is desirable.
However, Hunt's post has received numerous comments expressing doubts, such as, 'Simply converting C or C++ to Rust automatically risks generating inefficient code that makes heavy use of reference counting, or unsafe code that undermines the benefits of Rust,' 'One million lines of code per person per month is a huge amount of code processing,' 'Why did you choose Rust over C#?', 'What is wrong with C or C++ in the first place?', 'How do you verify that the newly generated code behaves the same as the original code?', and 'Can the conversion process detect and fix specific defects in legacy code?'
On the other hand, some people have commented positively about Hunt's project, saying, 'Projects like this could eradicate technical debt in large codebases,' and 'Rust's type safety and strict compiler provide excellent guidance for AI agents, making it the perfect language for this project.'
However, Hunt clearly denied the comment that 'AI will rewrite Windows code in Rust,' explaining, 'The Principal Software Engineer position we are looking for is solely a research project, and it is part of building technology that will enable migration from one language to another.'
Microsoft is also looking to expand the use of Rust, and by 2025, it has announced that it is officially adopting Rust as the development language for Windows drivers, stating, 'Over the past few years, Microsoft and the industry as a whole have adopted Rust as an important tool for reducing bugs, improving security, and promoting safe, maintainable programming.'
Towards Rust in Windows Drivers | Microsoft Community Hub
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windowsdriverdev/towards-rust-in-windows-drivers/4449718
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