Rust dev moving into Web3 — how do you answer ‘Tell me about yourself’ without sounding like a blockchain newbie?

I made the same switch and my mistake early on was trying to “prove” I knew blockchain buzzwords. It backfired because hiring folks can smell memorized stuff in 10 seconds.

What worked for me was keeping it simple: who I am (Rust depth), what I ship (systems mindset), why Web3 (specific pull), and what I’ve already touched (proof). Not big claims — just clean signals.

Something like: “I’ve been doing Rust for X years building performance-sensitive systems. I’m moving into blockchain because I like systems with hard constraints — adversarial inputs, state, correctness. Recently I’ve been playing with ___ (indexer, client codebase, basic transaction flow, whatever you genuinely did) and I’m enjoying it enough that I’m now interviewing for Rust-heavy Web3 roles.”

That last line is important: Rust-heavy Web3 roles. It frames you correctly so you’re not judged like a smart contract dev.

If I ask “tell me about yourself”, I’m not looking for your full story — I’m checking how you think and how you position yourself.

For Rust + blockchain candidates, I value clarity + ownership more than “I learned DeFi and ZK last weekend”. The strongest intros I hear are boring in a good way:

• “Here’s the kind of problems I solve in Rust” (latency, safety, concurrency, profiling)

• “Here’s what I’ve shipped / improved” (even if it’s Web2)

• “Here’s why blockchain makes sense for me” (one concrete reason, not ideology)

• “Here’s a small proof I’ve done so far” (repo, demo, write-up)

If you do that in under a minute, you’re already ahead. Then I’ll use follow-ups to test blockchain depth — but your intro’s job is just to earn the follow-up questions.

Thanks for the tips guys

Small secret: most people lose this question because they either sound too generic (“hardworking passionate team player”) or they oversell Web3 knowledge and get caught two questions later.

The best pattern I’ve seen is: role label → strengths → proof → direction.
Not bullet points, just a clean mini-story.

Example vibe: “I’m a Rust backend engineer who’s been working on high-performance systems. Lately I’ve been moving closer to blockchain infrastructure — I’m interested in protocol/client/tooling roles where Rust really matters. I’ve been building small pieces on the side so I can talk about real things, not theory. I’m now looking for a team where I can contribute with Rust from day one and grow the blockchain depth fast.”

If you say it like that, you sound honest and hireable.

What I’ve noticed after reading hundreds of interview threads: “Tell me about yourself” is not an icebreaker in Web3 — it’s a credibility filter. People who ramble sound risky; people who anchor on proof sound safe.

If you want to calibrate what “good signals” look like, this is a helpful reference: https://artofblockchain.club/discussion/web3-interview-signals-calibration

And this one frames why proof beats buzzwords in hiring loops: https://artofblockchain.club/discussion/proof-based-hiring-in-web3

Hiring-side lens (what interviewers actually reward): https://artofblockchain.club/discussion/hiring-managers-recruiters-hub-hiring-signals-interview-expectations

If you’re actively interviewing, drop your current 45–60 sec intro here (as-is). I’ll help you tighten it like a real hiring loop would. And if you want Rust roles, you can also browse live listings on our job board (example Rust role page):

https://artofblockchain.club/job/rust-software-engineer-trilitech-london-hybrid