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The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

efinancialcareers.com

41–50 of 595 posts

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. They pay well, but the job is absolutely stressful. If you survive long enough to enjoy some of this money, good luck for you, you deserve.

Which industry are we talking about — gamedev? ;-)

No, the parent poster said they pay well!

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. They pay well, but the job is absolutely stressful. If you survive long enough to enjoy some of this money, good luck for you, you deserve.

Which industry are we talking about — gamedev? ;-)

Obviously not.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#45
> Where are all the C++ programmers? People are seemingly scared away from the language by a terrible stigma: the notion that it is a legacy program.

I think this is because the pool of jobs for C++ programmers is so small.

I took a position as a web dev at a company whose main product was a CAD application. Most of my work was in NodeJS, but occasionally, I'd have to dip into the C/C++ layer to make some API changes to facilitate my JS development. When my project was cancelled, I was given the option to move to a team doing all C++ development for the desktop app. I gave it some thought and realized that this was probably the only company within 100 miles who needed C++ developers, and that most of the people I worked with were hired out of college.

I left immediate afterwards. I didn't want to be stuck in my 40s-50s with a unless skillset and have to start back from the beginning. I'm sure other people considering fintech work feel similarly. We live in a world where people keep their jobs for 2-5 years, meaning we live in a world where workers need to consider the needs of the entire job market, not the needs of an individual company.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#46
post #2

I guarantee that higher quality pay will give you access to a higher quality talent pool.

These are financial firms griping about the lack of developers. They're some of the highest paid developers in the world. But working for these companies is also insanely stressful. Long hours, high pressure. Maybe that reputation has caught up to them.

> Maybe that reputation has caught up to them.

It did. Comp is nowhere near FAANG and the work culture is still stuck in the 90's.

Go to any college and talk to students looking for internships. Finance firms are nowhere near the top of their list.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#47
He seems to be talking about some specific type of C++ programming.

Starting in the mid-2000s, C++ started feeling like a different language at each company I worked at. Different libraries allowed, c-style versus STL coding, even completely different ideas about how classes should be written.

I looked at some recent language proposals and didn't even understand what the code was doing. Saying "I know C++" is too vague and almost certainly incorrect.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#48
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are financial firms griping about the lack of developers. They're some of the highest paid developers in the world. But working for these companies is also insanely stressful. Long hours, high pressure. Maybe that reputation has caught up to them.

Last time I looked at the finance industry, which was admittedly a while ago, I saw a C++ job that listed the salary as being around $100k. Sounds reasonable. In New York City. Oh . Compare to Google salaries, on levels.fyi for example. I know they're not theoretical or inaccurate because I worked at Google for a while. If you really want to do C++ professionally, that and maybe other FAANG companies seem like they'd…

I don't think I know of many buy side firms that pay any less than Google, Microsoft or Meta. Salary just tends to be relatively small compared to the bonus or return on invested capital in the fund.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#49

Does your junior job requires ten years of experience ?

I found 10 years back that getting into C++ jobs that would give you valuable experience were the ones that already required you to have that experience, or have very good connections. The ones that were easier to get into were the C-with-classes balls of mud that only were written in the first place because they were early for Enterprise Java to be invented, I doubted that entering from the latter would give you a pathway to the former.

I decided it wasn't worth pursuing, went from doing Clojure to Big Data in Scala.

Ten years later, I hear that there's not enough "C++ developers", read, "C++ developers with the desired qualifications". Seems straightforward to figure out why.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#50

Unless you are doing latency sensitive high frequency trading, why would you use C++? Wouldn’t Go or Java suffice?

And if you are doing latency sensitive high trading, please stop now and find a better job.

Take a look there if you are looking for a useful role in the society: https://sdgs.un.org/goals

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