Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#151

Post by itsEtai » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 5:48 PM UTC

blocked_again wrote: post #15

Best strategy for becoming a high paying/good software engineer would be to think of yourselves as problem solver and language as just one of the tool for problem solving. Thinking of yourselves as someone who is a writer of a certain programming language is self constarining and missing the point.

This attitude is a great starting point, but take caution to curate a future for yourself that you find interesting.

Whatever work you do, you will forever be the person who has done that work. Next time something needs to change in that domain or language, you might find yourself talked about as a specialist!

The moral is to choose and pick your projects carefully. Vocalizing your experiences with your manager goes a long way for shaping your future: like “I liked working in X and I want to do that more” and “I am glad I got to try Y, but I really didn’t enjoy it.”

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#152

Post by hutzlibu » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

rtlfe wrote: post #138

ipaddr wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you switch languages during a job search? Are you avoiding companies with language requirements (four years Ruby)? Do you run into language/framework tests and/or homework assignments in languages you are unfamiliar with?

I've interviewed at probably 15+ companies over the last decade, and none of them had language requirements or tests. Honestly I see those things as red flags. If you can find somebody with good problem solving skills and proficiency in any language, they'll be able to pick up your language no problem.

"they'll be able to pick up your language no problem."

That still takes time. If someone is already experienced in an (complex) ecosystem, he or she will be way more effective in it, than someone who has just general skills. I guess I am a very good problem solver. But if I suddenly would have to do a C++ project with all its footguns, I am not aware of (last time I coded in C++ was in university)? I would suck in it for quite a while. This would not be effective at all, unless I would want to change my skillset to the C++ ecosystem.

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#153

Post by fab13n » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:02 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #134

rtlfe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty excessive. I've switched languages whenever I get a new job, every 2-5 years. I think this is more what OP had in mind.

How do you switch languages during a job search? Are you avoiding companies with language requirements (four years Ruby)? Do you run into language/framework tests and/or homework assignments in languages you are unfamiliar with?

I prefer companies which are open about the technologies and languages I'm experienced with. That's a huge green flag, that they consider their software engineers as smart people solving hard problems while continuously learning new skills. It also means they listen to their senior technical staff, which consider that learning new bits of stacks is hardly the most complicated thing they expect you to do.

As opposed to companies which consider them as glorified factory workers, who are insufferably hard to manage and monitor.

I'm currently working with RoR, which I'd never used before, and what matters is that I know algorithms, SQL beyond ORM, how to write code which won't be a nightmare to maintain in a couple of years, etc. All those skills are the same in Rails, in Django, in C++.

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#154

Post by weatherlite » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:06 PM UTC

EddySchauHai wrote: post #150

goodpoint wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compare that to understanding C or UNIX. There are skills that decay much slower than others. Correct! Knowledge around C, Linux, CPUs and optimization last many decades. Knowledge of tools and libraries in high-churn languages last years at best.

I've found a lot more career happiness with focusing on a long-term domain (networking), long-term expertise (testing), and a stable tech stack (python, c, etc). Got pretty close to burnout chasing the latest libraries in the latest languages a few years ago but now I'm very happy making sure the product is cutting edge but the tech stack is stable.

This is what I'm trying to do as well now (move from full stack web dev to something more in the lines of what you're describing). Any tips you can remember on how to make the move?

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#155

Post by hardware2win » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:06 PM UTC

dnissley wrote: post #100

nly wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cute theory, but the reality is most employers want you to be relatively efficient from day dot. I work in a team with a codebase split 50/50 between C# and C++, and if you're not proficient in one of those then the chances of you getting hired, even if you're an incredible programmer, are slim.

This is a trait of an employer that I consider a red flag. If they don't understand that most programming languages are pretty similar, and can be picked up quickly by any willing person, they probably don't understand a lot of other things in regards to tech

Quickly=?

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#156

Post by yomkippur » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #120

ptttr wrote: post #43

I do definitely recommend Clojure - I've switched to it in 2019 coming from Rails and JS and never looked back. Clojure's job market is great, there's no shortage of offers, even for newcomers and it has been the top paying lang in stackoverflow surveys for years https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-salary-salary-... However, the most important part is that Clojure is a very powerful piece of technology that…

The SO chart shows Erlang is actually highest at $120K salary. Also note the median years of experience is 13. Making $110K after 13 years is not all that great. The chart would be more useful if it showed a trajectory over time for each language. Overall I don’t think this chart should influence anyone’s decision to pick a programming language. I worked with a few teams using Clojure and there was nothing magical ab…

The problem is that learning a niche language like Clojure should demand a higher salary but it doesn't. Companies realize they can get an existing experienced developer to learn it. It's also not wise to jump ship to a niche language like this unless you really have the funding for it and even then, the talent pool is much smaller and you find yourself its not an employers market in that niche.

So as a business owner by choosing clojure:

- I can't afford to lose experienced clojure devs but my budget is fixed

- I am going to be constantly requiring onboarding, training existing non-clojure devs

- I simply cannot reverse this decision.

To me the third point is the biggest risk but back to your point, it can become unmanageable unless you have the best and the brightest.

In any other language, you could still operate the business with middle of the pack but with these niche languages the risks are just much higher. It would require a Product Manager or even a CTO with extensive clojure background and those would be even harder to find and keep.

Like the SO survey shows, not everybody is willing to pay top dollars for a clojure dev and this should make anyone pause before jumping into it.

I personally liked clojure but the tooling was still painful like working with Java. Readability wise its a nightmare and if your entire team quits, there is a very good chance your business will fail, as it is that much harder to scale up your team or find experienced talent who now feel they are owed a much higher wages (which they should).

Nim on the other hand is more promising. It doesn't have any radical shifts, it still reads like Python and its very fast. But it doesn't even show up in the SO survey which makes me think its far too early.

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#157

Post by sdoering » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

kevinmchugh wrote: post #111

thr0wawayf00 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think this way and wound up completely exhausted in my career. Coming from web dev, I used to volunteer to dive into a Objective C repo to fix some random bug in a mobile app and then a week later my boss would ask me to build a big feature in that app. I'd spend a few weeks getting up to speed on the language and build the feature, and then I would never use what I learned again. My boss would ask me to di…

There are organizations that generate forgotten apps that are basically used but unmaintained. These are tarpits for developers. You don't want to be the person they fling at every forgotten codebase. They tend to be sideshows - if they really brought in the money, or the users, the business would invest in them and have people who know the language. There's value in being able to go in, fix a little problem, and mak…

I know from quite a few traditional corporations, especially banks that have very central old systems that they pay people enormous day rates to maintain.

But the question would be if one wants to be the go to guy for keeping old cobol things running.

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#158

Post by eschneider » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

There are definitely positions out there, but they're not always obvious. I picked up an new embedded/backend job at the beginning of the year and they mentioned "Oh, we're doing a lot of new development in Elixir, you cool with that?" towards the end of the interviewing process. Wasn't ever in the job description before I was hired... And yes, most of the new development has been in Elixir, when it makes sense. :)

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#159

Post by rtlfe » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #152

rtlfe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've interviewed at probably 15+ companies over the last decade, and none of them had language requirements or tests. Honestly I see those things as red flags. If you can find somebody with good problem solving skills and proficiency in any language, they'll be able to pick up your language no problem.

"they'll be able to pick up your language no problem." That still takes time. If someone is already experienced in an (complex) ecosystem, he or she will be way more effective in it, than someone who has just general skills. I guess I am a very good problem solver. But if I suddenly would have to do a C++ project with all its footguns, I am not aware of (last time I coded in C++ was in university)? I would suck in it…

> That still takes time.

Yes. I want to work somewhere that shows they're committed to the long term, not somewhere that's focused on how much I'll get done in my first week.

Re: Ask HN: What is the job market like for niche languages (Nim, Crystal)?

#160

Post by yomkippur » Sat, Jul 23, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

2c2c2c wrote: post #115

Elixir is at a different level than the other languages you've listed. I learned and built stuff for fun using Elixir around 6 years ago while in college, and dropped it on my resume in the pile of technologies I know around then. In the past 2 years, as my yoe hit 5 years, I now get the hoard of specialized Elixir recruiters who filter by 'elixir' and '5 yoe'. These amount to 75%+ of the people who contact me about…

Curious what your TC was and # of employees. Were they all startups or were there any established companies hiring Elixir/Phoenix ?

The technology is very interesting but I find that it has the same issues as clojure: limited talent pool, questionable cost/productivity gains.

LiveWire is very interesting but its now emulated to a large degree in other more popular languages enough that I could put off learning Phoenix and opt for a more modular solution with popular languages.