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The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

efinancialcareers.com

351–360 of 595 posts

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

#351

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 not abusive. That's a rational security posture. Defense contractor employees can't take their work home either. It's nice when you can't be pressured to work off hours.

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

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Of course they take money, but they hopefully also create real value. Providing liquidity a fraction of a microsecond faster than a competitor doesn't seem like real value to me, more like a cover story so that politics doesn't outright forbid high-speed quantitative trading.

Ahh classic. Obviously only these financial firms are the only ones not creating value.

Those social media companies, start-ups people do for venture capital cash grabs, Web3, and addictive mobile games all create such value.

EDIT: Okay, as the replies mentioned, OP did not make this argument. I still feel it’s valid, as a lot of big tech is neutral/worse for society, yet they are some of the loudest critics of low latency liquidity.

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

#353

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?

C++ isn't necessary in many business contexts, and can result a worse business overall outcome than alternatives. If it's a harder tool for people to use, and the use of the hard tool isn't necessary, why would you use it? Why not use an easy tool? Especially if the easy tool means more people can wield it, so there's a wider labor pool to draw from, or a reduced error rate from tool-difficulty-induced defects.

Indeed, many businesses correctly decide there's no benefit to using a difficult tool that isn't required, and choose an easier tool that produces a better business outcome.

e.g. suppose you're a non-tech enterprise (bank, utility, etc) and you need to build a bunch of backend web services to support your internal operations. If you decide to implement them in Go, which is arguably a domain specific language for building web services, then you can probably deliver the project by hiring a bunch of fresh grads and putting one intermediate to senior programmer in place to lead the effort, even if no one has any Go experience.

arguably if you try to deliver the same business outcome in a random enterprise context using C++, a project team will likely have a far more difficult time getting basic HTTP / TLS server stuff in place, and if there's lots of rookies on the team, they'll keep making foot-gun memory error mistakes.

Sure, maybe if it was built in C++ by highly senior engineers, and subjected to a thorough QA process, you could end up with a system that's much more efficient at runtime than what could be cobbled together by less experienced engineers with an easier language and a good standard library. But in most business settings efficiency isn't the bottleneck, it's delivery speed and then maintenance costs, which are driven by staffing and how expensive it is to change the code each time the requirements change.

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

#354

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

I worked in a high frequency trading company before. They had similar concerns about secrecy but I loved it. Even today I think it was the best job ever. Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again. I learned so much about computers - probably more then in any uni. By the way, work life balance was way better then in any FAANG company (I worked for two FAANG companies afterwards). Nobody ever expected me to be in before 930am and nobody ever expected me after 6pm.

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

#355

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…

Most jobs want you in the office 8 hours a day.

Yeah for real, I there is so many tech people are sheltered now days that if anything difficult comes there way they can't handle it. 700k for an 8 hour a day job and claiming to be abused is ridiculous. It's fine for someone to say they don't want the job but claiming abused is something else. People work months away from there families to provide for them and make 10% of that wage.

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

#356

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 not abusive. That's a rational security posture. Defense contractor employees can't take their work home either. It's nice when you can't be pressured to work off hours.

It's not rational at all. It shows a complete distrust for the employee.

National security is different because the rules are imposed from the outside. These are self imposed rules.

Also most defense contractor employees don't work that much overtime and many can take the non-classified parts of their work home.

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

#357
post #342
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned below we are doing audio plugins. Every cycle is precious to our artists. Especially since we are doing spectral effects.

I do precise timing with accuracy up to +/- 1ns and some of my hardware are of 10-100pt resolution. I use C and Rust for such serious stuff as I don't have free time to waste to just entertain those over designed concepts like OO or STL. you need to be honest - the stdlib of C++ is not on par with the ones in rust or golang. It is more like stone age tools compared with starlink. I sincerely hope that all C++ users w…

> more like stone age tools compared with starlink

that would the starlink whose performance slowly, inexorably degrades as more and more of my neighbors start to use it?

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

#358

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

I know people here have a lot of issues with the word "abuse", but that is true. I only had a few days in my life where I was productive in the office for that long. Just after three days in a row of 8:30AM to 6PM would burn me out and I would be sleep-deprived and useless for the rest of the week, so why am I forced to suffer? They are paying one lemon a year so I HAVE to be in the office? It's just amazingly stupid, but that's American school of management for you.

I did crazy things when I was younger, and I would NOT subject myself to those now, so yeah - abuse.

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

#359

There are plenty of talented C++ programmers. They just don't want to be abused by trading firms or work in that culture. Even paying them more won't work, because no amount of money is worth that abuse. I interviewed at a trading firm once, while I was working at Netflix (because Netflix encouraged us to interview for outside jobs at least once a year). The comp would have been double my Netflix salary. But I would…

I worked in a high frequency trading company before. They had similar concerns about secrecy but I loved it. Even today I think it was the best job ever. Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again. I learned so much about computers - probably more then in any uni. By the way, work life balance was way better then in any FAANG company (I worked for two FAANG compan…

> Now I moved to the States and thinking of going back down the high frequency trading route again.... Nobody ever expected me to be in before 930am and nobody ever expected me after 6pm.

That's probably because you worked somewhere with decent employee protections, since it sounds like you worked outside of the USA.

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

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most jobs want you in the office 8 hours a day.

Yes but I think you're missing the point. It's not the eight hours, it was the specific eight hours regardless of any other work you did plus all the overtime that couldn't be done at home. ie. The complete lack of seeing one's family.

Most of the jobs I can think have fixed working hours/shifts?
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