diff --git a/crates/shim-protos/Cargo.toml b/crates/shim-protos/Cargo.toml
index c0d0481..4a6513d 100644
--- a/crates/shim-protos/Cargo.toml
+++ b/crates/shim-protos/Cargo.toml
@@ -49,7 +49,9 @@ required-features = ["async"]
 
 [dependencies]
 async-trait = { workspace = true, optional = true }
-protobuf = "=3.5"
+# protobuf 3.5 introduces a breaking change: https://github.com/containerd/rust-extensions/issues/295
+# pinning to <3.5.0 until we can update the generated code
+protobuf = ">= 3.0, <3.5.0"
 ttrpc = "0.8.2"
 
 [build-dependencies]