Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

efinancialcareers.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 595 posts

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

#131

Post by steve918 »

TillE wrote: post #111
photochemsyn wrote: post #31

Writing new C++ code with all the modern approaches and tooling doesn't sound so bad. Troubleshooting a big legacy C++ codebase is probably something that Dante would have included in his Inferno as a punishment for pride and hubris.

Speaking as a professional C++ developer for the past 20 years, I think this sums it up well. A modern project should be able to use most of C++17 at least. Even if you still need to target some ancient garbage like Windows XP, you can use an MSVC toolchain that supports C++17. That's a good basis to work from. So your real concern is the moldy old code that's written for C++03, that's still not using std::unique_ptr…

If C++03 is old code then you're in one of the outer circles. The code base I'm working on has "Old style" C function declarations that predate C89.

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

#132

Post by rizzaxc »

TillE wrote: post #111
photochemsyn wrote: post #31

Writing new C++ code with all the modern approaches and tooling doesn't sound so bad. Troubleshooting a big legacy C++ codebase is probably something that Dante would have included in his Inferno as a punishment for pride and hubris.

Speaking as a professional C++ developer for the past 20 years, I think this sums it up well. A modern project should be able to use most of C++17 at least. Even if you still need to target some ancient garbage like Windows XP, you can use an MSVC toolchain that supports C++17. That's a good basis to work from. So your real concern is the moldy old code that's written for C++03, that's still not using std::unique_ptr…

do you have a good template (pun intended) on how to best learn modern c++? coming from Go and Typescript which have very mature devX tooling, c++ is a landmine to navigate. and that's when I already have professional experience with it (the place just didn't have strong c++ culture)

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

#133

Post by neatze »

speedgoose wrote: post #50
whywhywhydude wrote: post #25

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

Why stop there, any one who spends money on internement is unproductive human being, it is immoral to pay for Netflix instead of helping kid in Africa, right ?

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

#134

Post by bubbleRefuge »

mywittyname wrote: post #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…

Worked at cruise line company many years ago that had some IBM mainframe developers who I think used COBOL as the programming platform. Given my preconceptions that few engineers had COBOL skills, I assumed that there were making big $'s in this niche market. Found out it was like 50 dollars an hour which was significantly less that I was getting as an enterprise java dev. Asked one of them why the comp was so low and they said its was because there was still allot of graybearded COBOL devs around and fewer opportunities.

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

#135

Post by zarzavat »

InfamousRece wrote: post #98
klaussilveira wrote: post #19

Heh. I'm pretty proficient in modern C++, and it is my favorite tool for a lot of things, but my PHP job pays way more than any C++ position available. Did an interview once for Senior C++ Engineer, embedded software in the medical device space. All went good, until the offer: $100k. Articles like this are nothing more than a desperate attempt at getting younger generations to learn said topic, so companies can pay t…

I had an offer from robotics company: 80k and no benefits. I’m not sure where to find good paying C++ jobs outside of finance.

Pretty funny. For a hardware/robotics company, software is a cost center. For software company, hardware is a cost center. In-group are profit and out-group are cost.

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

#136

Post by passwordoops »

switchbak wrote: post #72
passwordoops wrote: post #62

Headline makes me think of RPG (the language, look it up [0]). It's basically disappeared, but it was one of the key languages used to develop much of the banking system waaaaay back. For a variety of reasons, it's still very much present but the experts are in their 70s and anyone competent enough to debug is well into their late 50s at the youngest. Attempts at upgrading to, say C++ or Java usually fail for the sam…

I'd wire wrap circuits on the Colossus for 500k a day! Do you actually mean 100-500k per day?

Yes, a day. When you're dealing with a bug that could disrupt all international transfers at your bank for several days, and the kid you have on staff who learned RPG on YT has reached his limit, it's cheap.

I learned about it from a friend who worked at an IBM partner with a tool to help translate RPG to something else. Rarely worked because of the decades of nuanced patches to deal with evolving business rules, and when it did they usually came in several million above budget.

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

#137

Post by kilgnad »

klaussilveira wrote: post #19

Heh. I'm pretty proficient in modern C++, and it is my favorite tool for a lot of things, but my PHP job pays way more than any C++ position available. Did an interview once for Senior C++ Engineer, embedded software in the medical device space. All went good, until the offer: $100k. Articles like this are nothing more than a desperate attempt at getting younger generations to learn said topic, so companies can pay t…

I'm curious about why. It seems like the economics of supply and demand should make it so that C++ roles pay higher.

There's less C++ devs, C++ is harder, demand is still high. Why are the salaries low?

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

#138

Post by francisofascii »

klaussilveira wrote: post #19

Heh. I'm pretty proficient in modern C++, and it is my favorite tool for a lot of things, but my PHP job pays way more than any C++ position available. Did an interview once for Senior C++ Engineer, embedded software in the medical device space. All went good, until the offer: $100k. Articles like this are nothing more than a desperate attempt at getting younger generations to learn said topic, so companies can pay t…

Which makes no sense to me. Isn't C++ harder and demand better programming chops?

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

#139

Post by cjbgkagh »

emidln wrote: post #96
cjbgkagh wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they’d have more luck hiring if they told a more accurate story.

Hiring C++ isnt especially hard because our pay is opaque. Recruiters will tell you immediately what total comp you can expect and they'll let you know what you can contractually guarantee year 1. Hiring for C++ is hard because C++ is hard and most people are quite bad at writing even somewhat reasonable code.

I was told $300K about a decade ago and I told them no. I was already making more than that at a big tech company with a much easier pace of work. $500K would have peaked my interest, why didn’t they tell me $500K if that was an option?

A quick google search is suggesting that $200K for the top end of experience, when I was told $300K they said it was as high as they go. Where is the rest of this compensation coming from? Maybe they could give stats for bonuses but when enquired it seemed that the bonus pool was being eaten up elsewhere and the C++ devs were in the back of the line for that.

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

#140

Post by JohnFen »

I'm a talented C++ programmer, but I do try to avoid jobs where I'm doing very much C++ anymore. I used to love C++, but it has become such a pain to work with that I prefer to work with most other languages when I have the choice.

My home projects are mostly embedded systems things, and for those, I use C++ -- barely. I use it in the old "as a better C" style.

Post reply on HN