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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

#371

Post by closeparen »

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…

>if you weren't a top performer, you were let go

If "top performer" is defined as, say, 90th percentile, does that imply >90% turnover?

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

#373

Post by jedberg »

albntomat0 wrote: post #369
jedberg wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an eight hour job, you're completely misreading it. It's eight hours required plus another eight each day of overtime. Which is abusive for a software engineer. And those people that work months away from their families -- they're being abused too. You'll notice that the owners of oil rigs aren't out there with them, for example.

> But I would have had to work in their office in Manhattan, be in by 8:30am every day and not leave until after 5 at a miniumum. That’s what you said originally, which reads as mostly normal work hours, plus maybe some overtime. If it was 16 hours a day, then please say so.

Read the rest of the comment?

> I wouldn't be allowed to take my laptop home, so if I had a hard problem to solve, I'd have to stay in the office the whole time. So basically they expected us to never see our family nor collaborate with anyone.

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

#374

Post by zeroonetwothree »

nostrademons wrote: post #307
klik99 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Arguing that one-time payments with up-front pricing are exploitative is pretty silly. That's the basis for the entire economy since we invented money thousands of years ago. If it's exploitative then you're basically lumping all economic transactions into the same bucket, which makes it fairly meaningless.

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

#375

Post by jedberg »

closeparen wrote: post #371
jedberg wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>if you weren't a top performer, you were let go If "top performer" is defined as, say, 90th percentile, does that imply >90% turnover?

No, not at all. You didn't have to be a top performer at Netflix, you had to be a top performer industrywide. Netflix basically tried to keep only people who would be rated as top performers at other companies.

Think of it like a sports team (which is how Netflix always described it). They wanted the best people in the league.

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

#376

Post by zeroonetwothree »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #209
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Amazon, & Microsoft are nearly always hiring talented C++ engineers. So you're not limited to finance. Quite the opposite. I'd be surprised if the majority of C++ jobs had anything to do with finance.

Yeah but then you go in to interview at these places and someone who only programs javascript or python will ask you to answer a contrived whiteboard question by hand that involves manually writing out verbose C++-isms like "std::unordered_map hashmap;". I went through a day of interviews at Facebook once where not even a single person interviewing me worked in C++. A lot of the interview cycle consisted of me answer…

I interviewed at Facebook using C++ and didn't have any issues. I guess maybe you were just unlucky. There are thousands of interviews so it happens that some are bad and you might get them.

And if you think C++ is too verbose I guess you've never interviewed in Java?

Personally when I interview people I don't care about specific syntax details. I do have at least a passing familiarity with 99% of common languages though, I think only once (out of ~500 interviews) did someone use something I had never seen before.

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

#377

Post by saagarjha »

lopatin wrote: post #368
perlgeek wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except in the sense of trying to exploit market inefficiencies to take it that's precisely the bad part about it

Sorry what’s bad about making profit from market inefficiencies?

It’s not something that drives obvious value for people.

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

#378

Post by saagarjha »

mr_00ff00 wrote: post #352
perlgeek wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

I don’t see that being argued.

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

#379

Post by zeroonetwothree »

The real issue seems to be that C++ jobs pay 2-4x less than other jobs. Why would I suffer through arcane template compilation errors when I can make 3x more writing basic JS? I actually find C++ really fun but I don't see much opportunities in it right now.

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

#380

Post by smabie »

commandlinefan wrote: post #64

Prediction: employers will respond by offering even less money (and absolutely no training at all) for these positions.

Reality: these jobs pay better than pretty much any other dev job in the world and in the last 2 yrs the salaries have skyrocketed even higher.
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