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The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

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

#301

Post by stefanos82 »

I cannot tell how many times I have heard this story, over and over and OVER again, yet their complain remains the same and the issue is still unsolvable!

I have said this before and I will say it again (until you HR people embed it in their minds): if you cannot find C++ developers, start training people and persuade, let alone motivate them to embrace it, learn it deeply and learn its rough corners.

I have lost counting how many interviews I went through and wasn't the right match for them, but loved my zeal for C++ as they have exclaimed with surprise.

When you get rejected so many times, you say "C++?! why bother anyway?" and you give up and follow a different route, using a different toolset that does not asking for the unimaginable, whatever that is they are looking for, and you get respected for what you can offer to them!

If I had the way to gather all HRs around the globe and ask them all at once what is it they are looking for exactly, it would have saved us all from wasting our time.

The whole situation has gotten way out of hand and needs to end, at last!

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

#302

Post by steve1977 »

PaulHoule wrote: post #17
galangalalgol wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people actually use c++ for HFT? I thought it was all verilog and cuda.

Some high throughput financial systems use Java

High throughput yes, but HFT is mostly about latency.

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

#303

Post by kazinator »

kazinator wrote: post #194

> People are seemingly scared away from the language by a terrible stigma: the notion that it is a legacy program. Probably more like, they are turned off by how large and complex the language is, and how it's accumulating features like a giant rolling ball of mud. The discouraging legacy lies in the code bases. "You can just write code with new features" is a hollow sentiment, because a lot of work is maintaining le…

Scott Myers' last sentence in his retirement-from-C++ page is telling:

https://scottmeyers.blogspot.com/2015/12/good-to-go.html

The top-most entry in his long-suppressed to-do list?

"Stop trying to monitor everything in the world of C++ :-)"

I.e that retirement from C++ basically was the execution of that top-most to-do entry. Being a C++ expert means constantly monitoring what is spewing from the fire hose.

By contrast, I can be a Lisp expert and improve in that by what could be described as crystalizing. Filling the interstitial spaces.

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

#305

Post by pcthrowaway »

lucidguppy wrote: post #216

When you write C++ you have to know that you don't know the language. If you think you know the language - you are aiming that shotgun right at your foot. C++'s attempts to modernize usually mean adding features with maintaining backwards compatibility. It's like adding new paint to a bucket of brown paint - things never really get better. I think the percent of programmers who can keep the language in their head all…

    C++'s attempts to modernize usually mean adding features with maintaining backwards compatibility. It's like adding new paint to a bucket of brown paint - things never really get better.
    I think the percent of programmers who can keep the language in their head all the time is very low.
    There are minefields everywhere.
This is sounding a surprising amount like Javascript at this point. Not hating on JS, but it has significantly changed over the years while maintaining backwards compatibility.

Looking at a codebase I can pretty much pinpoint when it was written (± 3 years).

I shudder at the thought of people who onboarded in JS in the last 2 years coming across a 20-year-old codebase though.

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

#306

Post by nostrademons »

stouset wrote: post #298
nostrademons wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask most financial institutions they would say the service they provide is "liquidity" - they let you put your money in or take your money out at any time (in exchange for securities), as well as make decisions about where you want to allocate your capital based on your personal view of the world. This always fell a little flat to me (hence why I left the financial industry early in my career), but it's pretty…

The average retail investor just does not need that much liquidity, especially if they're not buying individual stocks (which by and large they shouldn't be).

And the average retail investor pays pennies to market-makers - if a typical spread is 1-2 cents and you make 5 trades a year, you've paid between a nickel and a dime.

As with advertising, when you sum up dimes across hundreds of millions of people, it becomes an appreciable amount. Particularly when you also include trades made by institutions on behalf of retail investors. Your 0.5-1.5% management fee on an actively-managed mutual fund is partially going to pay salaries for the fund manager, and partially toward brokerage commissions, spreads, etc. for the trading itself. And mutual funds care a great deal about getting liquidity when they need it, since they're in breach of contract if a flood of redemptions come in and they can't liquidate assets to pay them.

(Market makers are also analogous to the credit card industry in that a small fraction of dumb people subsidize a large number of fiscally responsible people. If you get a rewards card with no annual fee and always pay it off on time, you turn a profit, paid for partially by merchant fees and partially by idiots who carry a huge balance at 25% interest rates. Similarly, if you buy-and-hold a good stock or index fund, you're making profits far in excess off what the financial industry can skim off you. The suckers are largely made up of day traders, wage slaves who can't save anything, and underfunded pension funds with principal agent problems.)

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

#307

Post by nostrademons »

klik99 wrote: post #297
nostrademons wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well yes, but the gaming industry is all about exploiting psychological efficiencies to take your money. Big Tech (in its advertising/retail/OS forms) is all about exploiting psychological inefficiencies to help other people take your money, and then taking a cut of it.

If you mean "gaming industry" meaning gambling machines, then yes. If you mean "games industry" as in video games then it's just not true that it's "all about exploiting psychological inefficiencies". There are many monetization strategies that are not exploitative that are common and even dominate in the market. Ubisoft, DLC, or Candy Crush freemium models are not representative of the whole industry.

AAA games with one-time payments are still exploiting psychological inefficiencies; there is a reason why we are evolutionarily hard-wired to pay attention to fast-moving visual settings where action is required from us.

For those who say "but I like to play video games" - yes, that's the point. Day traders like to speculate, and gamblers like to go to the casino. Your downside is capped with one-time payments, but a gambler who goes into the casino with a $20 and no other money also has a capped downside.

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

#308

Post by zerr »

jedberg wrote: post #268
jstx1 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year Can you tell us more about this? What's their reason for it?

Netflix separated pay and performance. Your performance was evaluated all year, and if you weren't a top performer, you were let go. In the spring we would do 360 reviews, where anyone could write a review of anyone else, to give candid feedback (although giving candid feedback was encouraged all year, but this gave you a formal outlet to do it). In the fall, your pay was evaluated (and kicked in at the new year). Yo…

Did you use that 700K offer for increasing the salary at Netflix?

I've heard about the culture of fear at Netflix - was this your experience as well? Who decides whether you are a top performer or not - only the manager, or the peers as well? Do they use stack ranking? How is the performance deduced, e.g. by nbr of commits? Thanks!

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

#309

Post by m00x »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #271
stagger87 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to clarify, you used the word "abuse" several times to describe a job where you would have to work in office between 8:30 to 5 and pull (I'm safely assuming) half a million dollars a year?

Not sure about GP, but money isn't everything. If I feel like I'm being treated badly, under stress, and lonely, no money can compensate that.

It depends on what your original amount of money is. I'd rather work my ass off and be abused than be broke and afraid I can't provide for my family.

I'd go from 30k to 100k regardless of work conditions, but not from 350k to 700k.

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