Tiago Ntalani
JavaScript/React/Python · computer science engineering degree
“The next step was backend Rust, beyond JavaScript. We shipped an Airbnb clone with Axum and Leptos.”
Tiago graduated with a computer science engineering degree from India in 2024, with a background in JavaScript, React, and Python. He first touched Rust through a Bitcoin CLI program out of Nigeria, assuming the language was strictly for low-level systems work, until a LinkedIn post about full-stack Rust convinced him otherwise.
He joined the 9-week bootcamp alongside a cohort from Nigeria, Poland, and France, with weekly live sessions on Saturdays. Week 5 shipped his first full-stack CRUD app on Axum and Leptos, and the bootcamp closed with an Airbnb-clone capstone project.
Backend concepts, not just Rust syntax
Tiago had written frontend and scripting code before, but never a real backend. The bootcamp meant learning routing, request handling, and ownership through Axum at the same time as Rust itself, on top of a borrow checker and lifetimes that gave him no shortcuts the way Express and Node.js had.
He got there by rewatching the week's videos until the concepts landed, then proving it out on the week-5 to-do app before carrying the same patterns into the capstone.
- •No prior backend experience, learned Axum from scratch
- •Borrow checker and lifetimes were the first real wall
- •User authentication still flagged as a work in progress
A shipped Airbnb-clone capstone
By the end of the 9 weeks Tiago had gone from a self-taught, mentor-less start on Rust to a shipped Airbnb-clone project built on Axum and Leptos, the direct successor to the week-5 to-do app.
He found Leptos' component model close enough to React to pick up fast, and closed the bootcamp with the LinkedIn-profile week built to turn the project into interview-ready proof.
- ✓Full-stack Airbnb-clone shipped on Axum and Leptos
- ✓Comfortable moving between JS/React and Rust mental models
- ✓A LinkedIn profile built to show the work
From a Bitcoin CLI tool to full-stack Rust
Tiago came in with a computer science engineering degree and a background in JavaScript, React, and Python. His entry point into Rust was a Bitcoin infrastructure program out of Nigeria, learning the protocol through a command-line client written in Rust. He assumed Rust was strictly a systems language, until a LinkedIn post about shipping full-stack web apps in Rust, front end, back end, and database, changed that.
- ✓Self-taught first: Rust book, GitHub repos, no mentor
- ✓Borrow checker and lifetimes were the first real wall
- ✓Joined the bootcamp specifically for the full-stack angle
A multinational cohort, learning backend from zero
The weekly live sessions put Tiago in a cohort with engineers from Nigeria, Poland, and France, an experience he compared directly to studying computer science in India among classmates from a dozen countries. The hardest part wasn't Rust syntax, it was the backend concepts themselves: routing, ownership through request handlers, and everything the borrow checker forces you to be explicit about that Node.js and Express let you skip.
- ✓Week 5 to-do app: full CRUD, the first time the pieces clicked
- ✓Leptos felt familiar fast thanks to the React background
- ✓Auth was, and still is, the part he flags as unfinished
Shipping the Airbnb-clone project
The bootcamp's capstone project was an Airbnb-clone build, and Tiago shipped it. It's the project that forced the week-5 CRUD fundamentals, Axum routing, and Leptos components into a single, larger full-stack app, the kind of codebase he could point to as proof he can build production-shaped Rust, not just follow a tutorial.
- ✓Built on the same Axum + Leptos stack from the week 5 project
- ✓Closed out with the bootcamp's LinkedIn-profile week
- ✓Says newcomers only need programming experience, not prior Rust
The journey
One clear path through the build
Entry point
Learning Bitcoin internals via a CLI program built in Rust.
Trigger
Saw a LinkedIn post on full-stack Rust, didn't know it was possible.
Weeks 1-4
Rust fundamentals, ownership, borrow checker, functions.
Week 5
First full-stack CRUD project: to-do app on Axum + Leptos.
Weeks 6-9
Airbnb-clone capstone, weekly live sessions, LinkedIn profile week.
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Mentor perspective
Tiago Ntalani started from JavaScript and self-taught backend concepts by rebuilding until they clicked. He applied the advice to slow down, revisit the hard parts, and turn each concept into working code instead of moving on too early. That consistency carried him through the bootcamp and into a shipped Axum and Leptos capstone.
Max Wells
Rustify mentor
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