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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

#791

Post by cybuerg »

chaostheory wrote: post #674
germandiago wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I also like Python. The problem is when you need 30 servers instead of one to manage your load, though, lol.

I also love Python the language, but it’s hard to keep using it when it’s so slow. Parallel processing helps, but it’s still slow. Definitely dumping pandas the first chance I get. It’s one of two major bottlenecks with the other being anaconda for Windows. Maybe the culprit is running Python on Windows since it relies on so many parts of nix?

I can recommend pola.rs instead of pandas. For my use case it was insanely faster, I did not try it on Windows however.

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

#792

Post by bambataa »

22SAS wrote: post #578
bambataa wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are hours like at HFs and quant firms? I’ve heard they can be bad.

That's another load of BS spread by people not in the industry. They equate HFT's and quantitative hedge funds the same as investment banks. At most HFT's, mine included, devs are mostly doing 40-45 hours a week. Some places like Citadel, Headlands, the work hours are terrible (still not IB level bad), but the rest of the places it varies between 40-50.

What IBs have bad hours for devs? I worked in the markets team at a BB IB and did similar hours to you. I wasn't sitting with traders, to be fair.

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

#793

Post by int_19h »

zabzonk wrote: post #486
int_19h wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C and C++ are still horrible languages even if you want to teach those concepts, because of how many footguns they have. That's why Pascal was so popular as a teaching language, historically speaking - it still has pointers and other stuff you need for manual memory management, but it's much simpler and more regular both syntactically and semantically.

no, it has exactly the same issues as c and c++, and some of its own, such as arrays of different sizes being different types. guess why it isn't used anymore

Arrays of different sizes are different types in C, as well - this is obvious when you are dealing with pointer-to-array types.

That aside, Pascal removes a lot of UB and other footguns by forcing explicitness for e.g. casts and pointer arithmetic, or providing (verifiably safe) byref argument separately from raw pointers. Strings and arrays are a mess in standard Pascal, which is why everybody used dialects that solved them - most notably Borland's, of course, which was used for a lot of DOS and early Win32 software.

Anyway, I'm not suggesting Pascal specifically today. The point is that C and C++ were never good teaching languages, which is why something else was usually used as one whether we look at 80s, 00s, or today.

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

#794

Post by weatherlite »

Have to say this threat really took me by surprise. I was seriously considering moving from web dev (ruby/python etc) to C++ or even C to increase my job security. I guess the feeling many devs have of job insecurity and/or frustration with constant changes and becoming obsolete and/or burned out is inherent to the field. Back to the drawing board...

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

#795

Post by KptMarchewa »

forgotusername6 wrote: post #556
KptMarchewa wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But sheiks and oligarchs are buying all the real estate, so the cost of living is pretty similar.

In central London perhaps. But it's by no means important to live actually in London and work in London. Commuter culture is (or at least was) big. Many people commute from the surrounding 100+ miles by train each morning and pocket those London salaries while living in low cost of living areas.

And some part of them slowly dies each morning when they have to wake up extra early just to waste time on train delays.

Commutes over 30 minutes extremely sucks, unless they are taken from your work day time.

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

#796

Post by twic »

pyb wrote: post #289
twic wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. I note that position is being advertised by Oxford Knight, a high-touch recruitment firm. Their main modus operandi is to make contact with someone looking for a job, find out what they are looking for, and then suggest particular openings on their books to them; they would have plenty of opportunity to explain about the compensation. I think these public job listings are a bit of a cheap additional thing, a…

As a C++ developer hoping to move back to London, this side of the market is still very opaque.

Amen to that!

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

#797

Post by twic »

bambataa wrote: post #415
twic wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

150k plus bonus. It's at a quant firm, so the bonus is likely to be ~50% of base salary if you do okay, and multiples of that if you do great.

What are hours like at HFs and quant firms? I’ve heard they can be bad.

In my very limited experience (n = 1), hours per week is the same as anywhere else i've worked.

One quirk is that the trading day starts at seven in the morning, so at least one dev in the team has to be awake(-ish) and logged on to handle any technical issues. Before the pandemic, that meant being in the office, so an 05:45 alarm clock for me, but these days we do it from home. Another quirk is that trading winds down after six in the evening (exact time varies), and some releases have to wait until after that, so sometimes you've finished a piece of work but have to loiter to actually release it. Again, these days we can do that from home, so less of an impact, but still can be annoying.

Also, my team does its own out of hours support on a very unstructured basis, so you could get an alert in the middle of the night (but not weekends) you need to respond to, although this is rare (and is mostly in our hands to keep rare!).

I expect that better-organised teams have better ways with dealing with all this!

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

#798

Post by mxschumacher »

intelVISA wrote: post #570
rychco wrote: post #209

I’ll offer a perspective unrelated to pay: It’s a pain to start learning C++, and even after you do, older devs will roast the hell out of your code because your book/tutorials of choice forgot to mention a crucial (in their opinion) feature that you absolutely should/shouldn’t use! Not to mention you’ve only programmed on Mac/Linux so far & windows is totally different, has a different compiler, different ways to in…

As a C++ enjoyer I would 100% have learned Rust if it was around when I started... just for Cargo alone. Problem is now I've already done my time in the Makefile trenches there's little incentive in me re-learning another systems lang and having to compete with lots of smarter people, with more Rust exp, for jobs whilst giving up all my arcane knowledge of CMake and friends. Rust being popular atm is great for C++ if…

you have picked up so much meta knowledge (debugging, testing, build optimizations), domain understanding and soft skills that making the switch might be less tough than you think. Plenty of coins in Rust land, too!

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

#799

Post by ilirium »

One more reason why: there is no job for Juniors, Middle and Senior. Only such as 10+ years of experience with a narow specialization, this is not for Senior, it is for Senior++ ;)

2 decades ago, there were plenty of jobs for newcomers: shareware desktop apps for Windows, growing CAD/EDA/simulation tools, small and middle-sized games, and enterprise apps. Today there is no room for desktop apps for Windows, CAD/EDA/simulation seems stagnant, games require Unreal/Unity/Godot with their own languages, and enterprises used C# and Java.

Embedded C++ positions differ from "General C++ Senior++ Engineer". Yes, they are welcome for novices, but they use their own subset of C++ of an outdated language version, and you cannot grow with them, because the size of a project is small and after 10+ years you cannot be Senior++ with required rare specialization (and of course low salaries).

What else leaves for novices to get more experience? Only writing and supporting your own open-source project with a few users (or no user base at all) during a decade… So, it is not an option for many people.

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

#800

Post by mxschumacher »

shaklee3 wrote: post #755
jjav wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what can be used instead of C++? For most use cases Java is a better option. Very fast, without any of the pain. If you truly must not have a VM (rare), there's still C. Perhaps rust.

Java is not very fast compared to c++, or you'd see it in embedded systems all over.

what's fast really depends on lot on what you are building - without more details about the challenge at hand any statements about performance are unhelpful. A huge backend system? The logic in a toaster? A space ship?
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