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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

#331

Post by sliken »

badcppdev wrote: post #35
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…

Embedded roles pay less than almost any other role... I feel there should be some sort of diagram possible that explains which industries and technologies pay more or less.

Or take 10 minutes and look at the job ads. After all the supply/demand for different jobs changes over time and by location.

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

#332

Post by Gigachad »

stouset wrote: post #279
dahfizz wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does your employer pay you if they don't take money from anyone?

By providing a service to customers, rather than finding ways to skim money off the top of markets?

Levelling prices between markets is a useful service. Eventually the amount being skimmed is tiny and regular consumers are much more likely to be getting a fair price without having to shop around.

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

#333

Post by WorldMaker »

Justsignedup wrote: post #159
kilgnad wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

there's another factor: age If I am a C++ developer, in my late 50s, close to retirement, and know C++ fairly well, don't want to learn a brand new system which I won't be coding in for much longer, and already have my financials all set... I won't be looking for that early retirement big cash payouts. I just want my flow of cash for a good retirement, to go on my vacations, and to buy gifts for the kids / grandkids.…

Related to age factors: so long as the "primary" development language for videogames remains C++ there's always going to be a multi-generational talent pool for C++. Young naive programmers get into videogames until they burn out or are laid off due to ageism then there's "always" "fresh" new C++ talent for other industries too immediately following those videogame roles (assuming the burnout isn't total, such as strokes).

COBOL got to where it is when there stopped being entry level jobs for it. Videogames keep a massive entry level door (full of "passion") open for C++. That's going to "naturally" keep C++ development salaries low for the foreseeable future.

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

#334

Post by kilgnad »

WorldMaker wrote: post #333
Justsignedup wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's another factor: age If I am a C++ developer, in my late 50s, close to retirement, and know C++ fairly well, don't want to learn a brand new system which I won't be coding in for much longer, and already have my financials all set... I won't be looking for that early retirement big cash payouts. I just want my flow of cash for a good retirement, to go on my vacations, and to buy gifts for the kids / grandkids.…

Related to age factors: so long as the "primary" development language for videogames remains C++ there's always going to be a multi-generational talent pool for C++. Young naive programmers get into videogames until they burn out or are laid off due to ageism then there's "always" "fresh" new C++ talent for other industries too immediately following those videogame roles (assuming the burnout isn't total, such as str…

Oh interesting. You think videogames are influencing the rest of the industry? That actually makes a lot of sense.

Are there other sources (articles, research, blogposts) that talk about this?

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

#335

Post by WorldMaker »

htrp wrote: post #39
devnull3 wrote: post #15

I guess C++ is the new COBOL. When fresh out of college, I used to pride myself knowing C++. I used to revel in its complexity because it made me feel a cut above the rest. How naive & stupid I was. I have not worked in C++ for a long time, I cannot climb the mountain of complexity again.

Maybe the new FORTRAN

Python seems to be showing that FORTRAN still has a great present. It's amazing what is current in the Python ecosystem and written in FORTRAN.

Python still has a lot of C extensions and C code but Python has never strictly cared about C++.

From a Python perspective, at least, C++ is more like COBOL than FORTRAN.

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

#336

Post by sergius »

Please define 'talented' first! Any 'talented' developer can code in most languages (well there are exceptions, VB comes to my mind :-) )

There are 'experienced', 'hard working', 'team player', 'junior' (aka cheap)and even 'senior' (a developer's developer) but 'talented'?

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

#337

Post by acdha »

nurblieh wrote: post #254

I see some comments comparing C++ to COBOL, given similar articles in the past. However, this is where I think COBOL is much better than C++! Most developers could jump into a 40 year old COBOL codebase and safely make changes. This is probably less true for even a 20 year old C++ codebase. Sure COBOL looks old but its complexity is so much lower. Similarly, I haven't written COBOL in 25 years but I suspect the langu…

I think you’re right: COBOL is boring, C++ is exciting in terrible ways! It would take time to understand why COBOL was written the way it was but you’d need to understand that with any legacy app, but C++ also introduces a lot of arcane language complexity to learn just to understand the business logic.

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

#338

Post by clnq »

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…

Same in video games. Many C++ engineers are learning JS in spare time to hopefully jump over to something that pays 4-5x.

My personal experience also says that you spend much less time to build something profitable in JS and PHP than in C or C++.

I don't think it's impossible that in another 10 or 20 years C and C++ engineering roles will become much better paid as legacy code maintainers' pool will dry up. Hopefully as a result of moving to languages like Rust - it would work out best for all developers. But it's not looking good in the C++ land salary-wise now.

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

#339

Post by DougN7 »

jedberg wrote: post #286
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?

8:30 to 5 was required, but also never working at home was required, so what I was trying to (poorly) say is that they basically expected you to live in the office and never see your family. I'll update accordingly. And the comp package I turned down was about $700k at the time, which was 10 years ago. Nowadays it would be a $1M+ job easy. But not seeing my family is not worth any amount of money to me, since there a…

That’s what we called a “regular job” 30 years ago. Work from wasn’t even an option.

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

#340

Post by jedberg »

DougN7 wrote: post #339
jedberg wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8:30 to 5 was required, but also never working at home was required, so what I was trying to (poorly) say is that they basically expected you to live in the office and never see your family. I'll update accordingly. And the comp package I turned down was about $700k at the time, which was 10 years ago. Nowadays it would be a $1M+ job easy. But not seeing my family is not worth any amount of money to me, since there a…

That’s what we called a “regular job” 30 years ago. Work from wasn’t even an option.

That’s not true at all for white collar jobs. You’d bring your work home in a briefcase and work on it after the kids went to bed.

And if was a blue collar job you got overtime. This job expected you to work onsite 80 hours a week.

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