Microsoft wants to replace its entire C and C++ codebase, perhaps by 2030
(2025/12/24)
- Reference: 1766547585
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/12/24/microsoft_rust_codebase_migration/
- Source link:
Microsoft wants to translate its codebase to Rust, and is hiring people to make it happen.
“My goal is to eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030,” Microsoft distinguished engineer Galen Hunt wrote in a recent [1]LinkedIn post.
“Our strategy is to combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft’s largest codebases,” he added. “Our North Star is ‘1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.’”
[2]
Hunt’s post mentions a [3]job ad for a Principal Software Engineer who will be expected to work on the tools Microsoft is building to pull this off.
[4]
[5]
“The purpose of this … role is to help us evolve and augment our infrastructure to enable translating Microsoft’s largest C and C++ systems to Rust,” Hunt wrote.
Microsoft has already built some tools to make the move.
[6]
“We’ve built a powerful code processing infrastructure,” Hunt wrote. “Our algorithmic infrastructure creates a scalable graph over source code at scale. Our AI processing infrastructure then enables us to apply AI agents, guided by algorithms, to make code modifications at scale.”
Whoever gets the job will work within Microsoft’s Future of Scalable Software Engineering group, a team Hunt says has a mission to “build capabilities to allow Microsoft and our customers to eliminate technical debt at scale.”
“We pioneer new tools and techniques with internal customers and partners, and then work with other product groups to deploy those capabilities at scale across Microsoft and across the industry,” he wrote.
[7]
Unlike C and C++, Rust is a memory-safe language, meaning it uses automated memory management to avoid out-of-bounds reads and writes, and use-after-free errors, as both offer attackers a chance to control devices. In recent years, [8]governments have called for universal adoption of memory-safe languages – and especially Rust – to improve software security.
Microsoft has also called for greater use of Rust. In 2022, the CTO of the company’s Azure cloud [9]called Rust to become the default language for new projects. Microsoft scientists have [10]worked on a tool that automatically converts some C code to Rust.
The software behemoth has also [11]created tools to help developers write Windows drivers using Rust.
Microsoft offers a vast array of products. The site [12]MSportals.io lists over 500 active online portals for managing Microsoft products! The company also has a huge internal IT estate.
The effort required to re-write all that must surely be beyond enormous. It will doubtless surface huge numbers of edge cases that automation can’t address.
If you’re brave enough to want to make a contribution, the job Hunt mentions requires you to work three days a week in Microsoft’s Redmond office and pays between $139,900 and $274,800 a year. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7407863239289729024/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://careerhub.microsoft.com/careers/job?domain=microsoft.com&pid=1970393556639051
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/11/nsa_urges_orgs_to_use/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/28/is_it_time_to_retire_c/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/03/mini_c_microsoft_inria/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/rust_windows_drivers/
[12] https://msportals.io
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
“My goal is to eliminate every line of C and C++ from Microsoft by 2030,” Microsoft distinguished engineer Galen Hunt wrote in a recent [1]LinkedIn post.
“Our strategy is to combine AI and Algorithms to rewrite Microsoft’s largest codebases,” he added. “Our North Star is ‘1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code.’”
[2]
Hunt’s post mentions a [3]job ad for a Principal Software Engineer who will be expected to work on the tools Microsoft is building to pull this off.
[4]
[5]
“The purpose of this … role is to help us evolve and augment our infrastructure to enable translating Microsoft’s largest C and C++ systems to Rust,” Hunt wrote.
Microsoft has already built some tools to make the move.
[6]
“We’ve built a powerful code processing infrastructure,” Hunt wrote. “Our algorithmic infrastructure creates a scalable graph over source code at scale. Our AI processing infrastructure then enables us to apply AI agents, guided by algorithms, to make code modifications at scale.”
Whoever gets the job will work within Microsoft’s Future of Scalable Software Engineering group, a team Hunt says has a mission to “build capabilities to allow Microsoft and our customers to eliminate technical debt at scale.”
“We pioneer new tools and techniques with internal customers and partners, and then work with other product groups to deploy those capabilities at scale across Microsoft and across the industry,” he wrote.
[7]
Unlike C and C++, Rust is a memory-safe language, meaning it uses automated memory management to avoid out-of-bounds reads and writes, and use-after-free errors, as both offer attackers a chance to control devices. In recent years, [8]governments have called for universal adoption of memory-safe languages – and especially Rust – to improve software security.
Microsoft has also called for greater use of Rust. In 2022, the CTO of the company’s Azure cloud [9]called Rust to become the default language for new projects. Microsoft scientists have [10]worked on a tool that automatically converts some C code to Rust.
The software behemoth has also [11]created tools to help developers write Windows drivers using Rust.
Microsoft offers a vast array of products. The site [12]MSportals.io lists over 500 active online portals for managing Microsoft products! The company also has a huge internal IT estate.
The effort required to re-write all that must surely be beyond enormous. It will doubtless surface huge numbers of edge cases that automation can’t address.
If you’re brave enough to want to make a contribution, the job Hunt mentions requires you to work three days a week in Microsoft’s Redmond office and pays between $139,900 and $274,800 a year. ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7407863239289729024/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://careerhub.microsoft.com/careers/job?domain=microsoft.com&pid=1970393556639051
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33aUtzcq0n85-_SE9Nnyvw0wAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/11/nsa_urges_orgs_to_use/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/09/28/is_it_time_to_retire_c/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/03/mini_c_microsoft_inria/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/rust_windows_drivers/
[12] https://msportals.io
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
“1 engineer, 1 month, 1 million lines of code”? That's not an engineer, that's a patsy.
Pulled Tea
That's not dev empowerment, that's a moral crumple zone when some hallucinating chatbot codes in a major security vulnerability.
If it aint broke...
Gary Stewart
Well it is broke and given Microsoft's track record the best that they could do is break it more and take a long time to do it. This is not a good time to be a Microsoft OS beta tester, AKA customer.
Micro$loth strikes again
Apprentice Human
Low pay, high workload fixing AI hallucinations and slop.
Glad I'm retired and never worked for the circle of hell that Dante missed.
One more thing
thames
This is one more thing to add to your list of "things that are not going to happen".
Microsoft have yet to demonstrate replacing even one significant program that they derive revenue from by using AI to rewrite something that was in C++ to something written entirely in Rust. They have re-written bits of programs in Rust, but that's it.
One programmer is not going to produce 1 million lines of finished code every month, AI or no AI. Of course they may get an AI to submit variations on the same 10 lines of code 100,000 times in an effort to hit a numerical target, but that isn't going to get them to an all-Rust program.
What they are doing sounds more like a desperate effort to promote customer use of AI than a serious goal for themselves.
lol. yeah that's the problem. blind leading the dumb leading the dumber blind. how are they still a company and who pays their hard earned money for anything they make?