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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

#321

Post by dennis_jeeves1 »

klyrs wrote: post #239
wwweston wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This speaks to the point in the article "The real problem is that C++ is neither easy nor loved," which they offset with "The language may be hard. But it's also worth it." The problem is that there's a law of diminishing returns to compensation. If you can work with a tool you like that helps you meet milestones and general expectations for $X00k generally leading to pleasant days, or can work with a tool that makes…

They're focused on the language. The language isn't the problem. Of the people I've met in finance, there are some really strong and offputting trends: they're uniformly dismissive of work/life balance, they're almost uniformly the worst stereotype of tech-bro, and aside from the rampant cocaine use, they're hugely socially conservative, and every single one values profit over ethics. It's not the language, it's the…

> Any programmer worth their salt can march into a nasty codebase of whatever language,

Correct, I wonder why people both technical and non-technical focus on this aspect a lot. ( my guess is that they are incompetent themselves).

Agreed, if you want someone for two or three months you probably want someone who knows the language and it's ecosystem pretty well. Any work that is more than six months should be nearly language independent.

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

#322

Post by perlgeek »

dahfizz wrote: post #240
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

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.

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

#323

Post by cue_the_strings »

jakesgates wrote: post #283
cue_the_strings wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the C++, it's the embedded. Embedded is paid miserably, everywhere, no matter how complex or interesting. Simply put, having to manufacture things, with its supply chain, warehousing, manufacturing, ... is never gonna have the margins of a purely software or financial product. Since the employees' salaries depend on the profit from that physical thing, it can never compete w/ software / finance. The only wel…

Do you think the many embedded engineers working at Apple, TI, AMD, Intel, etc are paid significantly worse than their higher level software counterparts?

I do, in fact. The reason is that most embedded people are recruited from the ranks of EEs. At least around here (Europe), 1.5-2x more EEs graduate each year compared to CS people, and EEs doing EE stuff are paid even worse than embedded, it's a step up for them. They don't and likely can't ask for more. Surely, some EEs learn CS stuff on their own and start working dev jobs, but they're the exception. I've worked with a lot of EEs, and their general programming knowledge (especially knowledge of best practices, tooling, software architecture) is way worse than CS people, in general, across companies and countries. Every time, the best devs were CS, even when it was 100% embedded or even FPGAs (which are not taught to any CS students, yet are taught to every EE student). I personally know maybe a couple of EEs that are great devs (through their own effort and interest), compared to at least a dozen of CS people. However, CS people generally know almost nothing about analog design and at hundreds of MHz (table stakes for serious stuff since 2010) things start getting pretty analog whether you like it or not, so you have to hire EEs anyway.

I interviewed for Amazon for an embedded/mixed role because that was my forte at the time, and the compensation offered was nothing special, worse than even a mediocre finance sector offer, much better than automotive or general embedded (medical, industry / robots). Could never get an Apple interview (they passed on me twice), though, and I never even thought about the rest (that would require relocation to to places I don't care about).

But since I never actually worked for those companies or have any concrete data I could be completely mistaken. I only have friends working in FANGs in non-embedded roles and embedded friends only working for shit-paying companies, plus some of them are not willing to discuss salaries (suckers). Also, I get the feeling that AMD / Intel / Nvidia operate a bit different than the rest.

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

#324

Post by lazypenguin »

dietrichepp wrote: post #114

When I talk to people about careers I see a lot of people with the implicit assumption that because something is technically difficult, it should pay well. Of course, when you say it out loud, it doesn’t sound true any more. The correlation between job difficulty and pay is relatively weak. I do think that one of the contributing factors here is that it’s hard to be as productive in C++ as you can be in other languag…

I agree, your comment nails it for me. As an average developer who maybe is above average in C++ I’m just more productive and can produce better results in other languages in a shorter amount of time with less pain.

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

#325

Post by mempko »

jedberg wrote: post #142

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…

As someone who is a huge proponent of Free Software an an open culture and also who now runs a trading firm now, I completely agree with you. The industry is incredibly frustrating, especially to engineers and scientists. Because, by our very nature, we want to share our ideas and collaborate, because the best work is done together. There are no secrets internally at my company. Because I believe, in the long run, and open culture will win.

But you aren't wrong about the industry in general. It's crazy frustrating.

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

#326

Post by e-dant »

Lots of comments here debating what’s legacy, what’s modern. Here’s my take:

Never use objects with behavior. (Ban OOP.)

Prefer monadic types.

Functions should only take or return moved values or const references. (These form linear types when you need state and ensure immutable values for stateless types.)

Never use a template without a concept.

Prefer the stack and ban mutable memory.

You end up with a functional language which resembles Haskell and competes with C. Not even rust has that level of generality.

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

#327

Post by danbolt »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #305
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 si…

I think the two languages share a lot of interesting traits, but in unique ways:

- Widely deployed in a variety of contexts (web, embedded, desktop applications, etc.)

- Relatively spartan standard library

- Variety of build setups and toolchains (eg: Make, CMake, Bazel, Babel, gulp, etc.)

- Variety of dialects and trends (eg: classes v/ prototypes, RAII, boost, handlebars.js)

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

#328

Post by 95014_refugee »

eru wrote: post #73
spamizbad wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked with several "veterans" of this industry, I'm inclined to agree. Also weirdly C++ devs aren't making that much more than the fullstack devs who build FOH tooling for traders.

What's FOH?

FoH = Front of House, i.e. directly supporting customer activity.

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

#329

Post by klyrs »

dennis_jeeves1 wrote: post #321
klyrs wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're focused on the language. The language isn't the problem. Of the people I've met in finance, there are some really strong and offputting trends: they're uniformly dismissive of work/life balance, they're almost uniformly the worst stereotype of tech-bro, and aside from the rampant cocaine use, they're hugely socially conservative, and every single one values profit over ethics. It's not the language, it's the…

> Any programmer worth their salt can march into a nasty codebase of whatever language, Correct, I wonder why people both technical and non-technical focus on this aspect a lot. ( my guess is that they are incompetent themselves). Agreed, if you want someone for two or three months you probably want someone who knows the language and it's ecosystem pretty well. Any work that is more than six months should be nearly l…

It really makes me wonder. I see so many job ads where specific-language mastery is a top-line requirement. And I know people who know that this is not justified, but keep doing it...

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

#330

Post by interactivecode »

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…

I’ll come hangout at the office for that much, no problemo.
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