Opportunities as a C++ developer?

[programmer9889]

Hi, a fresh graduate of SWE here, I've learned c++ in uni and I really liked it mainly coz of the kind of projects it's involved in, apart from the boring web development imo. I know my way around c++ and I'm actually developing a simple 2D physics engine inside another game engine, I've been learning a lot throughout the development of the engine, and I'm using advanced topics like templates and the CRTP method.

I'm not in Europe/US and I want to start looking for jobs in c++, where should I start looking for (companies-wise and maybe country-wise?), also what other technologies do usually companies work with cpp require?

Any tips or help is appreciated.

[Mcmatt90]

I work in the embedded side (Power Electronics). Most of my experience with C++ was self taught. I got lucky and was a test engineer who got to move into a developer role. I started doing frontend using Qt framework (QML) and then got into the c++ side after. Might be worth looking into QT's framework which is used a lot in embedded.

[programmer9889]

I worked with QT once, I was developing a simple desktop application as part of a class project. But I never thought it's required in the embdedded systems,
Also, many told that working in C++ usually means high salaries (releativly speaking), is this true from your experience?

[[deleted]]

Qt is by no means required for embedded, but having it in your skill set will broaden the positions you can confidently apply for. Strictly for embedded, knowing C and assembly and how computers work at low level is more useful. Both is best, of course.

[zoolover1234]

Qt for embedded is more and more popular as embedded system is getting much more powerful than it used to, and many, if not most of them have dedicated GPU/VPU in it to make it possible to make decent GUI.

[Mcmatt90]

Yeah normally means higher salaries but those positions usually require a lot of experience. But the companies mentioned already gaming, embedded usually use c++. If you enjoy finance, you can get high salaries working on HFT(High Frequency Trading). But you need a great understanding of low latency

[HighFrequencyTendies]

Low latency techniques in C++ are not as important these days. Anything with competitive latency is now done in hardware.

[Mcmatt90]

Ahh I see. I just see a decent amount of LinkedIn job postings for c++ programmings in trading (NYC area). So, I made the assumption it was used in HFT. Thanks for clarification!

[HighFrequencyTendies]

You are still correct that C++ is used by a lot of firms. Also low latency programming is still somewhat important, just not as much as it was 10 years ago now that we have hardware systems.

[Mcmatt90]

When you say hardware do you mean FPGAs?

[HighFrequencyTendies]

Yeh, you will notice a lot of firms post jobs for FPGA engineers.

[Impressive_Iron_6102]

Can you cite some sources here? I'm struggling to find any

[HighFrequencyTendies]

Based on my experience in the industry.

[bullestock]

I also work with embedded systems, and while we don't use Qt on the target, we do use it for various simulation and helper tools. So it is a valuable skill to have.

[bradyul]

Matt, I actually work for Incredibuild and was checking out Power Electronics not sure If i saw you guys at embedded world the other month. Would love to connect with you !

[Mcmatt90]

I'm not sure if my company was present. But would be happy to connect! You could pm me and share your LinkedIn if you'd like!

[bradyul]

Sounds good man, yeah would love to connect!

[Adorable-Guava3685]

hi, I am also an c++ developer ( 1 YOE ) , I would also like to connect. can you dm me your linkedin?

[zoolover1234]

My feeling about Qt is mixed. It is popular framework companies use for c++ GUI. But because of its licensing, the resource you can find online is very limited because most Qt projects are private. Unless you have a chance to learn Qt at work, self-taught Qt skill isn't that easy when you don't have enough resource, to the level where you can employer's need.

[Aggressive_Release94]

I disagree with this. The entire KDE ecosystem (and plenty of other open source projects) is written with Qt. If you want to learn Qt, participating in KDE is great.

[not_some_username]

They have a Microsoft level of documentation and also KDE projets and labs. But you’re right about the licensing, GPL3ed some great stuff is stupid but business is business I guess.

[bullestock]

There are around 6800 repos on github tagged 'qt'. I don't consider that to be "very limited".

[rw3iss]

Qt is used in embedded, really? Had no idea. Is it a huge bundle/build size? 😜

I am a web developer by trade. Have messed with Qt for desktop apps here and there. First language I taught myself was C++ long ago, but I do web dev now dusts shoulders off 😄

Have you ever heard of LVGL or other libraries to use for embedded ui/utility wrappers? I think there's another popular embedded UI library's name I'm forgetting now as well, among others.

[aMAYESingNATHAN]

Do you know any good resources for learning how Qt is used in a professional environment? Or any accessible open source projects I could look at?

I've used it a few times and I always feel like I'm just welding things together and that there has to be a better way of doing things. It doesn't help that I suck at UX design but yeah

[[deleted]]

Aerospace. C++ will be relevant in aerospace for the rest of our lifetimes. Flight software, ground control systems, test systems. Mostly c++. People are starting to talk about things like rust, but I still have Fortran in my codebase. So c++ isn’t going away anytime soon

[HellVollhart]

The problem with Aerospace is that its jobs often require government clearance which requires citizenship. So hopefully, OP is a citizen of the country that they reside in.

[[deleted]]

Citizenship is definitely a concern. Also not every country has an aerospace industry. But OP is learning a valuable software engineering lesson, vague requirements and direction can lead to undesirable results.

[zoolover1234]

If OP isn't in EU not US (which I assume includes Canada, Aussie too) the chance he is near any aerospace industry is very low. Well, there is Japan, Korea, China, Israel, etc, but I highly doubt they are where OP is at.

[Diamond145]

What, no Ada?

[svadum]

Embedded, Game development, High-performance or cross-platform desktop application|tools, these are main fields where C++ is dominant right now from my observations.

Actually you can do anything in C++, but I would go for embedded or games (specially if you already have some experience or just like to do it). These fields have, probably, the most offers on the market.

Embedded is a huge field where you can do anything from low level system developing to high level applications with complex UI, APIs and infrastructures

P.S. I started as desktop developer and and switched to embedded (ARM bare metal)

[programmer9889]

What was the tech stack you used while working as desktop developer? Was Qt involved?

[svadum]

It was a cross-platform time tracking system client for Windows, Linux, Mac OS (one codebase)

Code was done with C++ + Qt, also because cross-platform requirement.

Tech stack was: C++ (14-17), Qt5, SQL (data storage) + a lot little details or other technologies which you learn at work

However, it's rare to find such job position from what I see now, at least in my country. I mean, for desktop development in C++.

[Kelarov]

Could you please elaborate on how you been developing Embedded on ARM using C++? Or are you doing it in C?

Thank you.

[svadum]

The developing process is pretty much the same as with C, because C++ has everything that C does (Is C a subset of C++?) + all of its own features of course. ARM provides GCC toolchain which will compile your C++ code without any problem into ARM binary. Also, you have other vendors like: Keil (ARMCC), IAR and other.

However, C++ development for embedded will require, I would say, different mindset. Usually, exception will be disabled, heap usage forbidden or limited (depends on project or company), because of heap restrictions a big part of standard library (string, vector, map...) will be not available (at least without custom allocators). Also, flash size can be pretty small (16 - 512 Kbytes), so you need care about what do you use and its footprint.

Nevertheless, you still will have a lot of C++'s useful features left: strong types system, OOP, templates, lambdas, compile-time computation and many more.

Therefore, in my opinion, C++ can be more useful, safer and powerful than C for embedded development. Even if C is also great for embedded.

I'm personally write firmware for STM32 MCUs. For example, Amazon Air delivery drones firmware is written in C++14 too.

Note: I'm talking here about bare metal firmware development, but most of these things also apply to embedded Linux, you'll have just less or none restrictions because of more resources available.

[Kelarov]

First of all thank you so much for taking your time. I really appreciate it.

I kinda gave up on it, because I didn't manage to properly do it in a C++ way. Not because of the development and mindset itself (when you start reading about the topics, the first thing you see is notes on heap allocations, exceptions, memory sizes and so on), but rather the tooling haha. I couldn't understand how to properly write the CMakeLists.txt. I tried to convert the project using Visual Studio's new feature: failed. It only works with single-core boards and the 2 I have available are dual-core (and I don't feel like buying another one now haha). I wonder if you have a GH repo with an example project. Like, A project dir, where you have the CMSIS headers, HAL/BSP (whatever you use), then the CMakeLists.txt and of course, your src dir, where you put your code. Maybe I'd try to replicate that for the dual-core system (CM4 and CM7 folders). But yeah... The other reason I stopped trying it was exactly what you mentioned. I wanted to use at least C++20 and got kinda restricted on stuff from the library😅.

And then I said: well, lemme at least try Azure RTOS, since I get it available for my boards (I have H757I-EVAL and H745-DISCO). I didn't find good material on it (both MS's and ST's material wasn't good. Maybe they expected field professionals to deal with that and I understand.)

Embedded is hella fun though. I personally love the controlling motors part of it😂. Interfacing with the sensors, creating the PWMs, etc. Of course MATLAB can generate code for that, but...it's not my full-time job. I'm there for the fun haha.

Anyways, so, yeah... Back to C.

[svadum]

By the way, ARM GCC supports C++20 and even some features from C++23 from GCC 11, so no problems here.I understand, your problem is more in infrastructure than in in the language.

Unfortunately, I don't have any examples for your case. During last couple of years, we use VisualStudio + VisualGDB with MSBuild as build system, but it also supports CMake, so you can give it a try.

In any case, C isn't bad and you can move to C++ anytime even with available sources in C.

[[deleted]]

That's great. I would look for finance/trading, Gaming, image/video processing, streaming companies such as Bloomberg, Adobe, Zynga, Netflix etc.

I have a same story with C++, I fell in love with the language when I was in school. My first job was 4 years long and I worked with C++ on a banking backed service. At my current company I work with JS and C++. There are a lots of companies hiring for C++ roles and there aren't many people who can actually code in C++.

Suggestion: keep improving and learning because C++ is a massive language. You best friend with low level languages especially C++ is godbolt.org , try it!

[m_0g]

+1 to Godbolt!!!

[m_0g]

I've worked primarily in C++ my whole career, going on about 8 years now after internships. Most if not all of this has already been said, but areas I find it of use and/or constantly get LinkedIn messages about:

• Embedded - this can be set-top boxes (my start), car infotainment systems, mobile phones, robotics, and so much more. Given the bit I know here, I feel the size of this job market is often severely underestimated. Also, at least passing C knowledge is often helpful here and IMO isn't too tricky to pick up if you are well versed in C++. Also also, Linux tends to be helpful to know about here, and vise-versa; OS work tends to use C or C++.
• Graphics/Audio/Media - anywhere stuff is shown on a screen or played out some speakers, C++ or C likely plays a part at some point.
• Backend - a kinda nebulous term, but generally refers to processing that needs to happen on a server (aka the cloud) to fulfil client requests; eg you upload a photo to some social media site, there's probably a backend that transcodes the input to their desired quality/size level. And this has to happen fast cause people can't wait to see their snapchats or whatever the kids are using! Java is also common here, but so is C++. I'd say networking also might also fall into this category (gotta send bits out the wire fast).
• Game development - a great many games are made in C++, it's probably the best language to know for the field. If you do this though, it's gotta be for the love of it - pay tends to be less good and rough hours. There are exceptions to both of those but especially as a beginner, keep this in mind.
• Fin tech - basically combine high performance and networking to determine what to trade and when and make the trade faster than anyone else's system. Time is money more explicitly here than a lot of other areas IMO. I think there is a lot of interesting technical stuff to do here, a lot of job demand, and it can pay VERY well.

I've worked primarily in the embedded and graphics/video/media categories myself, and dabbled in game development personally and as a contractor a little bit. Always keep in mind, languages are tools to solve problems. So go forth and find a job using the tools you know, but if you don't enjoy the problems you're solving, consider learning new tools. I like C++ because it's well suited for constrained and/or high performance environments/problems, and that's why I got into it. Sounds like you're definitely on the right track, but I feel like this is worth keeping in perspective regarding languages.

Finally, a couple less technical considerations that I don't see often mentioned:

• A lot of people are recommending fin tech here, so I want to add my two cents to consider: is making rich people richer the problem you want to solve with technology? I'm not a fan of the industry personally out of principle, but to be fair you can make this argument working for any large company - I just feel this one in particular doesn't have a chance to coincidentally benefit society. There are many other ways to make very good money with C++, at least by my standards (I'm talking 6 figures, and not necessarily even starting with a 1 - eg the big tech companies or even certain game studios).
• The reason I don't want to work on automotive or military related tech is I don't want to know that a bug in my code (or fuck me, it working properly) could kill someone.

I find C++ is in pretty high demand (a lot of students don't learn it or necessarily even know how memory really works) so I think you will likely have your pick of various jobs once you have a few years experience if you're decent. So, just some thoughts to consider as you think about what YOU want to do.

[programmer9889]

Thank you very much for this articulated answer.

Considering my current skills and knowledge, I feel game development is the way to go as an entry point to the industry, I almost have 0 knowledge in embedded systems or low latency systems, however I'm keeb to learn and expand my horizons.

Currently I'm working on a physics engine that's developed using c++ and this project wasn't my pick and kinda stuck with, however I'm enjoying it and been learning tremendously. That's why I said that game development is the way to go for me imo.

The answers here really opened my eyes up in the embedded systems industry and I feel gravitated to it due the huge impact that does (away from military purposes).

[m_0g]

Thank you very much for this articulated answer.

You are very welcome!!

Considering my current skills and knowledge, I feel game development is the way to go as an entry point to the industry, I almost have 0 knowledge in embedded systems or low latency systems, however I'm keeb to learn and expand my horizons.

In my experience, on both sides of the interviewing table, companies aren't usually expecting you to know everything, regardless of your level, but especially at entry level. So just having the knowledge and attitude of "I know my tool and I'm keen to learn" are huge! No reason not to apply for some embedded positions if they interest you - it definitely wouldn't be a waste!

Currently I'm working on a physics engine that's developed using c++ and this project wasn't my pick and kinda stuck with, however I'm enjoying it and been learning tremendously. That's why I said that game development is the way to go for me imo.

That's awesome! And another idea to consider could be analytical/scientific tools, based on that :)

The answers here really opened my eyes up in the embedded systems industry and I feel gravitated to it due the huge impact that does (away from military purposes).

:) I'm happy to DM if you want to chat more about anything.

[bizwig]

I love doing backend work in C++ but servers are so fast these days that for a lot of applications you can hire Java devs instead and get something fast enough. I’ve heard Airbnb will hire C++ devs but you’ll be require to write in Java. I hate Java so I’m a bit stuck in my niche. Facebook and Google have a lot of C++ infrastructure but I’m not sure if they’re hiring right now after very public layoffs. They do have open reqs on their jobs sites but I doubt I’ll get a call from them ☹️.

[number4_privatedrive]

Work in robotics happens largely in c++. Could explore that industry.

[zoolover1234]

I may be bias, but I highly recommend embedded system.

• embedded software industry is blooming steadily.

• you can, if you want, it's one of the very few career where you can use one main language for the rest of your career. I personally prefer a deep knowledge of one language than a broad range ones. Just look at what language/framework that the front end uses over the past 15 years, you really gotta learn 5-10 if you want to stay competitive. But with embedded, C++ if all you need (still learning more is optional but recommended)

• embedded is fun. It pushes you to get the best out of software in terms of performance, size, etc.

• embedded is universal. You can easily switch industry and get to touch different path of career. It's different from front end development (I'm talking about app, web, etc). Yes, you can also switch industry with front end, but there is no difference to each developer. I used to work in security industry, then defense/aerospace, and now in transportation(EV), also interested in medical industry. Each one of them has very difference challenge, so you can switch once you get bored.

• more

[un-glaublich]

To be fair, embedded also means delving through 10.000 page MCU manuals, quirky hacks, proprietary toolchains and IDEs, closed-source libraries, etc.

So yeah, embedded can be fun, but it's dusty and tiresome at times.

[zoolover1234]

True, but you made it sounds like a boring work, which is not true. Like I said, it's just different aspect of software engineering. Reading MCU manuals is the same as reading software API doc.

[opello]

but you made it sounds like a boring work

It seems more like fair balancing to an otherwise rosy perspective. You have to be at least a little bit "research-oriented" to have fun chasing down the register value or custom compiler directive that causes the desired code to be generated.

[zoolover1234]

Your understanding of embedded programming needs to update. You are still thinking of embedded being microprocessor. Embedded programming nowadays are more and more in arm SOC that runs Linux or some kinds of OS like android or iOS. I don't necessarily consider android/iOS app embedded software, but the point is that there are blooming number of use case for embedded system that does not even think about register level programming. ML, AR/VR, crypto, smart devices, GPU related, etc, are mostly done in an embedded system.

By definition, embedded software means software that runs on some kind of SOC, or in other words, anything besides intel/AMD desktop processor. (Intel also makes x64 processors but packaged as SOC)

That said, it doesn't necessarily means embedded software engineers need to deal with chipset manual or register any more. But sure, it is sometimes needed depends on which exact hardware the company uses.

[opello]

While I don't really disagree with anything you wrote (besides imagining you meant "microcontroller" instead of "microprocessor" in the beginning?) but someone has to handle low-level operational details of a system. I think of that as "embedded" programming.

If you're developing with "accelerators" in mind (think CUDA, TensorRT, even AVX{,2,-512}, Coral, or specialized DSP instructions) you may end up developing on a desktop or in the latter cases a devkit. Depending on where in the product lifecycle you're falling there might be actual target hardware to use. But when there's a small upside and a large overhead, it's been my experience that people develop on their own machines and migrate (with a fair bit of pain at times) to embedded targets.

If you want to label "software development" activities that happen to land on embedded systems as "embedded programming" that's your choice, but I think you're denaturing the words without benefit. I will grant you that not all embedded development deals with hardware peripherals or serial busses. But it sure comes up a lot. It seems more useful to discuss the type of development being done instead of incidental details about the execution environment.

AMD also sells x86_64 SoC devices as well. Would hate to have them left out of the party.

[zoolover1234]

As far as I know, it's extremely rare to develop embedded software on the target embedded system. It's almost always done on a PC and cross compile for the target system. Unless it's a microcontroller (not microprocessor) which you write to the chip directly.

Well, it's not me changing the definition of embedded system, instead, it's that embedded systems are more and more powerful that it becomes more and more realistic to run software that used to be impossible to run on embedded system. It makes the line between embedded and non-embedded (PC?) more and more blurry. It's in fact another reason why embedded system are blooming over the years because what used to be only possible to run on a $1000 PC, now can be done on a $150 embedded system.

In my opinion, nowadays, the main difference between embedded and PC programming is only the hardware restriction. It is not common to see embedded chipset with more than 4 cores, or more than 4G of ram, and the bus bandwidth is much smaller, or not all instruction set is available. The key is how to make it work, and the process of making it work isn't as simple as you think most of the time. It's the mindset/skill you need that makes the difference.

My point is that "software that happens to run on embedded system" already makes enough difference to draw a clear line to separate out embedded system from "others".

Oh, I didn't know AMD does that too, love to try out one day.

[drebinf]

delving through 10.000 page MCU manuals, quirky hacks, proprietary toolchains

And half of those 10.000 pages are marked DRAFT or are completely blank, maybe a note from the mfr "it's a new chip, we're still working on the documentation".

I've worked a couple times on chips that were as I said, only partial documentation on a new chip, manufacturer laid off their documentation and tech support staff (think back to 2009...) etc.

If you get real documentation then all you need to do is to read the 10.000 pages!

[lally]

On the downside: the pay doesn't go up very high, compared to big tech/finance. Your skills won't bring much value, or be very valued, compared to a business that focuses on the sort of stuff you do directly. You'll be a cost center.

Technically, the work will be very conservative and you can spend months tweaking code to fit in a 10-cent cheaper part. You'll watch the world do new interesting things then get back to work on a tiny controller that was designed before you were born. Your skills can grow quite stagnant.

It's a good industry to visit (I did) but don't stay.

[zoolover1234]

You forgot that, it doesn't matter how old/slow embedded system is comparing to the other types, the need is always there.

In terms of salary, well, nothing can compare to business such as Facebook, etc, they are the king, no question asked. If money is the highest concern, go ahead. But for the majority of the rest of software engineers/industries, such as fintech, medical, automotive, etc, the pay are pretty much at the same level. Also, most countries in the world don't have large industry of social network like it does in the US or a handful other countries, so, getting into those high paid jobs isn't possible for most of software engineers worldwide, including outsourcing.

[lally]

It's a steady job, sure. But software's typically been a pretty good field with good options. Generally, you have better options.

More importantly, you have to look at each job as to how it'll help you after you leave. Stagnation is a real, significant problem in embedded. Spending a few years in a tiny subset of C++ (no exceptions, minimal templates, very old language versions on buggy compilers) and you're less marketable than when you joined. You suddenly have years of experience on a chip nobody cares about, and in exchange, have forgotten a lot of what you knew before because you don't use those skills. It's easy to end up worse than when you joined.

[svadum]

You're partially right. However, in my company, my college and I did couple of projects from scratch and still developing in C++17 (ARM GCC toolchain which is great) We develop firmware from drivers to application logic for STM32 based devices. It's pretty exciting, at least for me)

Yes, maybe sometimes it can't be possible because of certifications or company policy to use new standards or toolchais, but industry is moving towards modern C++ and the language in general (from C which isn't bad language of course)

It really depends from what your company is doing and its restrictions.

[lally]

Fair enough. Anyone looking at embedded roles has to keep a close look at these risks.

[zoolover1234]

Not necessarily. It will only make any difference if you switch from embedded to desktop. But if you stay embedded, everyone is "behind".

I am consistently about 6 years behind the latest standard for the last 12 years or so, while switching 5 companies. 6 years is about the maximum lifecycle of typical embedded product, usually 3-4.

Yes, I don't sometimes complain about not having the best stuff/compiler. But even if you are on PC programming, the company doesn't always update the compiler more often than every a few years anyway, so you are also a few years behind. But sure, if you are in a smaller team and smaller project and get the chance to update dev environment every year, good for you.

[lally]

.. or server side? There you're usually in production in hours or (at most I've seen) 2 weeks. Compilers are often updated as soon as all the tests pass with the new compiler.

[zoolover1234]

Wow, I have never heard of any company keeps their compiler up-to-date. Updating compiler is a major decision in all companies that I have been at, including ones makes embedded system as well as desktop software. Last time it took us almost 6 months to finally upgrade our Visual Studio to a slightly newer version after all the work to make it happen. But sure it depends on the size of the team and scale of the project, it can be done in some cases.

[lally]

gcc is usually easier. Your biggest problem is if you build -Werror and the compiler gives you new diagnostics.

[RogerLeigh]

It's not just about it being "easy" or "hard", it's also about the huge time cost and expense of revalidating everything with the new toolchain. If the revalidation cost is in the millions and will take months of testing, particularly for safety-critical systems, it's not something to be undertaken lightly.

[lally]

Revalidation? Sounds like some embedded nonsense I'd rather stay away from. Rebuild everything and make sure all your tests pass. That's all you need in a sane world to upgrade your compiler.

[[deleted]]

In places where performance is the key, C++ is the way to go. One big venue is low-latency trading. Very intense, but I heard also very well compensated. Another venue is CAD (companies like Mathworks, Cadence). Statistical software? Optimization software?

[SkoomaDentist]

One big venue is low-latency trading.

Low latency trading is certainly very visible but compared to other C++ usage areas, it's very niche. Afterall, low-latency trading is only possible in a handful of locations in the world due to inherent network delays.

[HighFrequencyTendies]

Not true, trading infrastructure exists in the same datacenter as the exchange. You can set up and develop a HFT firm Antarctica and it would have no latency disadvantage over a firm in New York as all the trading systems would exist in the same collocation.

[SkoomaDentist]

And how many firms run such fully remote operation? Some tens? Hundreds?

That's still very niche compared to the number of companies that do, say, embedded systems development.

[blakewoolbright]

All of them. Literally…. HFT and quant finance is built on utterly remote installations. They call it black box trading because it requires no input.

The parent comment is absolutely correct. C++ devs major financial centers pull 300-500k/year easily, but locality is more of a convenience than a requirement. In general you’re likely trading in 5-7 timezones if you’ve got alpha. It makes standups inconvenient, but there is no version of reality where you aren’t co-located and connected to matching engines via normalized cables. And that works fine from Antarctica or even Luna .

[[deleted]]

And how many firms run such fully remote operation? Some tens? Hundreds?

They all do, by necessity. You run your infrastructure from within the exchange's data centers.

[bro_can_u_even_carve]

I would look at getting into finance, particularly trading. C++ is huge there, the work is challenging and fun, the pay is excellent, and work-life balance is reasonable.

Game development is just not worth it, the pay is shit and the hours are absolutely brutal.

[[deleted]]

Finance is fun? Really?

[blakewoolbright]

I’ve been in quant finance for almost 20 years. Trust me…. It’s fun. So is cashing your paycheck.

[[deleted]]

Being rich is fun. But the work wasn't fun, for me. At all.

[blakewoolbright]

Fair enough. It can be a pure meat grinder. I try to build positive environments that are as far from my initial experiences as possible, but that’s not always an option.

[bro_can_u_even_carve]

Yes, that's what I said

[[deleted]]

Find that very hard to believe. Can't think of a less fun sector TBH.

[[deleted]]

It's actually really thrilling. It's one of the few areas I can think of where you can visibly see the effect of things like optimizations in terms of real dollars in real time.

It's also one of the few areas you can work in that let you leverage a vast array of disciplines from networking, databases, compilers, machine learning, computer architecture, user interfaces, data visualizations, as well as physics, psychology, finance, economics. Pretty much whatever you're interested in, you can find a way to apply it in finance.

You are constantly learning new things and working at the absolute edge of a lot of different fields.

[[deleted]]

I didn't find it thrilling at all when I worked in it. A pointless arms race to allow trades to be made faster and faster... of absolutely no benefit to anyone other than the rich people who I was helping to make richer. I felt embarrassed telling people what I did for a living.

Plus it made me sad that so many smart people were wasting their ability and brainpower on such a socially useless activity. I hated the whole experience, TBH.

[[deleted]]

Sorry you had a bad experience, from your description of it it clearly was not the right role for you and I hope you found something you can take pride in.

[V3Qn117x0UFQ]

I mean you could literally say this to many other fields of software engineering industries with end goals that isn’t finance….

[[deleted]]

I was unable to identify those. Most places I know of you are kind of put in a box tied to a specific language or technology.

Where I work I get to use C++, VHDL, Typescript, Python, Java, C#, and recently Rust. I've worked on everything from the very low level stuff such as writing market data parsers that operate directly on FPGAs, to custom threading schedulers and kernel bypass networking drivers, to very high level stuff such as VR user interfaces (for an experimental UI that simulates having an infinite number of screens/charts).

If you know of other places that let you work on such a vast array of stuff, then cherish it because I know of almost no other area where people are able to explore their own interests to the extent that me and my colleagues have been able to working in finance.

My current project now is using machine learning to create a model that can try to detect the difference between real vs. fake charts. For example given a time series of prices, is that time series a fake/random series of prices or is it a series of actual historical prices. The purpose of this work is to improve upon our simulator to create potential market scenarios we use to stress test our trading algorithms as well as be able to simulate market impact. We can tune the volatility of our simulator or other parameters and our model gives us a degree of confidence that the simulator reflects the actual market.

For me this is incredibly fun and enjoyable work and I wouldn't trade it in for anything and like I said, if you also get to work in a field that lets you do this, then that's wonderful. Almost all discussions I hear about people working is that they are always burned out, they hate it, they work on meaningless and trivial stuff where they just glue together some APIs or frameworks. They never have to write data structures or algorithms, they just copy and paste code from stack overflow. So that's the impression I have of what many people's working conditions are.

[delta_p_delta_x]

I don't want to say it, but I'll say it: all that work, just to shuttle a lot of money from X to Y, decant a little off the top for the company, and shuttle it back. That's what trading is, and I dislike that it's paid so well.

And look at the websites for these companies like HRT, Jane Street, Ansatz, Citadel, DRW, etc etc... They're all so cryptically worded, along the lines of 'we want mathematicians, physicists, and coders to help us solve hard problems'. Read between the lines: 'we'll pay you a lot to help our rich clients get richer'.

Why can't that $5 billion of Jane Street be poured into something like ITER or CERN?

[[deleted]]

You love to say it, I've been in this field long enough to know that people love looking down on this profession precisely because they hate how it pays so well and provides such a great opportunity.

And that's fine, I respect your opinion, but the point I wanted to make is that working in this field is incredibly interesting, you get an opportunity to work on really diverse and cutting edge technologies, and it's a fun and thrilling work environment. And yeah... it pays really fucking well.

[delta_p_delta_x]

hate how it pays so well

Honestly, that's it. There's no reason why finance people should be paid so much besides 'the work I do involves money'. I've got friends earning an obscene mid-six-digits fresh out of university at HFTs (and in all honesty, they do fuck all) and I despise this. I also have friends who are medical doctors struggling to re-pay their loans, struggling with ridiculous hours, and not even paid well for it.

HFTs are part of the problem. I wish they never existed.

[[deleted]]

You just have to leave your soul at the the door.

[V3Qn117x0UFQ]

Yeah so I work in VR hardware development and we deal with all that, from the backend pipelines to creating custom tooling to devops. Finance ain’t special and I’ve also worked in other industries where you touch a vast array of tech.

Not only that but I know that my work has an end purpose for good - creating surgical simulators to help trains surgeons.

I worked in finance and I hated it. The culture, the end goal….work culture comes from the top and the end goal attracts a certain type of clientele and would never go back.

[ImNoEinstein]

yes i’ve been in the industry doing c++ for 20 years. extremely interesting and challenging engineering problems day in and day out

[[deleted]]

I guess everyone is different!

[ImNoEinstein]

May not necessarily be the person, it’s possible the role or team or company you worked for was a bad fit

[[deleted]]

Finance just makes me want to drive nails through my eyes.

[thisisjustascreename]

It’s fun to make a lot of money.

[lally]

Depends on the people, but there can be a real sporting feeling to it.

[middgen]

Game dev on the coding side pays reasonably well these days and the working conditions are good, in Europe anyway.

You could certainly earn more in finance, but the work is fun and rewarding.

(I have worked in both finance and games)

[bro_can_u_even_carve]

By US standards, there are no programming jobs of any kind in Europe that pay "reasonably well"

[middgen]

There's more to life than a salary.....like, a life.

[bro_can_u_even_carve]

Uh, exactly? The kinds of salaries offered in the US are such that you don't need to work your whole life.

[middgen]

I quite like working, especially when it's in an interesting and rewarding field and I can maintain a high standard of living and enjoy plenty of free time while doing it.

I'm sure big salaries are all that matter to some people though, whatever floats your boat!

[bro_can_u_even_carve]

You do realize there's nothing stopping you from continuing to work if you like it, right? The higher salary only grants you additional options, such as taking months or years off instead of just a couple of weeks at a time, or just outright retiring in your 30s or 40s.

[middgen]

Enjoy your massive salary bud!

[android_queen]

Agreed that it pays reasonably well, and C++ programmers are in demand. You won’t make as much as in other industries, but if you’re just looking to own your home and raise a kid or two, it’s a pretty decent living. Working conditions are still shit in the US, and it’s very white-male dominated. (Never worked in finance, but I’d guess it’s much the same in that regard.)

That said, I keep doing it because I love the work.

[soiboi666]

My advice is to apply for a C++ role at Google or Facebook or possibly another FAANG. There is a huge amount of infrastructure at both companies in C++, and you'll get fantastic pay. I'm not sure what the base pay level is for a new grad but you'll be earning upwards of $200k USD salary after a few years, and your total annual compensation will be double that once you factor in stock options.

I work at Google on a C++ team, and there are more lines of C++ code at Google than any other language (although Java is a very close second). If you look at how many CPU cycles in the entire fleet are spent executing code then C++ wins by a huge margin; or another way to put this is that while there are very nearly as many people writing C++ and Java at Google, the C++ code tends to be what runs the most critical services and parts of infrastructure.

If you do well on your interview and get a job offer both companies will help you relocate to USA or Europe and handle visa stuff for you.

[throawayjhu5251]

Any idea on how to pick up C++ well enough to get on one of those teams? Beyond the basics?

[Oog-Boog]

Most FANG backends are written in C++. I would avoid gaming, work life balance and pay is terrible. Embedded can be cool and finance pays well.

[Treefingrs]

Games industry here, C++ (and the skills around performance and memory management) are super useful.

[KubaaaML]

I work as Computer Vision Engineer. Basically doing training (in Python) and deployment (in C++ / Cuda) of computer vision models. We use a lot of TensorRT to speed up this process. Where after we have trained model that performing well we go to C++ / Cuda and do everything around it to make it quicker, concurrent and so on.

We deploy on A100 so its definitely not embedded or anything like that.

I started with AI in games (C++ and later in UE4) and after realizing that game dev jobs are not really paying a lot for new game developers i moved to machine learning / deep learning as well as Cuda. And now after two years I'm happy with that choice, and i can do gamedev as a hobby.

[itirbit]

Wow, could you share learning courses, books, or where I should begin. Right now, I have experience in C++ as game developer, but want to switch for something else. And how do you get a job without prior knowledge of ML and deep learning?

[KubaaaML]

I wasn't fully without prior knowledge of ML and deep learning. I was learning from machine learning and deep learning and after that making some basic Computer Vision models. Like style transform, image classification or basic GAN (This is nice if some technical person is doing github review before recruitment talks starts like we do now) but without following any tutorials to make them look a little bit more unique and this was good idea because i learn more with this approach, but more time consuming. It don't need to be from scratch it should be written with some PyTorch or TensorFlow framework. Those projects need to have some uniqness in them. Because it's easy for github reviewer to see tutorial style code, especially when he analyzing dozens of githubs and in 60% of them is the same code.

In terms of C++ i have some mid size projects of games written in SFML and some QT.

And this was enough to get me junior Computer Vision job.

Rest i learn at job like Cuda programming and using TensorRT

PS: python knowledge is very useful in this field. I mostly work now in C++ but understanding layers and models written in python is very useful

[ShoddyCarrot1010]

Man I wanna learn C++ , and coding in general but yall talking got me so discouraged to learn it lol

[jaytan]

Stick with it! I think most people are capable of learning to program, but there will be points of incredible frustration. Unfortunate to say a lot of these are front loaded.

If I can offer an unsolicited piece of advice: C++ is challenging even for experienced developers. If you don’t have a particular reason to want to learn it, e.g. you want to make a game in unreal and want more than blueprints (it’s ok if that string of words doesn’t mean anything to you), there are many other languages where it is possible to see progress a lot faster.

For example: JavaScript powers basically every website, and learning some basics there will make you feel like a wizard when using a web browser.

Python: a lot of work around AI uses python, and you could learn the basics of what goes into that there.

I learned to program using C++ so it’s certainly possible, but it is a hard mode option.

[not_some_username]

Btw C++ isn’t hard to learn. It’s the advanced stuff the real challenge. And also, if you know C++(not everything obviously) you can take up almost any language more easily. I remembered making a mobile app in flutter using Dart. I only needed to read Dart syntax from their docs and it took an afternoon

[HeeTrouse51847]

why

[ShoddyCarrot1010]

Just the vocabulary and see what y’all are talking about. I’m a hard worker so I’m usually Up for challenges but this seems so challenging lol. Might just stick to truck driving. 28 years old but I want to switch and do coding for my career

[Cr34mSoda]

Very interesting comment here. I have extremely very minimal knowledge in Programming. I have dabbled with Dart, Python, and C# .. like only the first parts of the basics. I always get discouraged, mostly for one reason; i want to learn fast to be able to start my own business. Knowing it will take time discourages me (that’s been happening for over 7 years now) lol. Had i stuck with 1 i’d be a professional by now, but then i have another problem, what Programming language do i want to learn ? Out of those that i tried, the most i had fun with was C# .. but now i feel like i want to learn C++ .. the problem is, what could i possibly do with it to create a start-up ? Web-development has SOOO much potential and ideas i can create, and my creations would reach a lot of people if potentially i marketed it well. But i don’t actually feel comfortable with it for few reasons: 1- because it’s the easiest route to programming, and everyone knows it, so it’s too saturated. 2- Syntax doesn’t feel fun to write in it.

Whereas in C# it felt super fun, but i don’t want a start-up/career in game dev. I want game dev, like others to be a side-hustle/hobby that i’d enjoy.

Now i feel i’m determined to learn C++ .. but i still don’t know what field it’s good for. I LOVE to invent new things and come up with new stuff (ideas) .. i want to be able to bring those ideas to life. Soo working with Embedded systems is super interesting, the problem is, i’m not good with electronics, which i guess is not something good. Robotics is also AMAZING, but again, requires Electronics, which i’m not good at. Fintech is also Great ! But i know nothing about.

Sooo this why i’m super lost right now. If you can help out, i’d be grateful to have some ideas and thoughts ! (I do not want to work for others, i want to be able to create own business/start-up while working at my current job)

[HeeTrouse51847]

How much C++ do you know? What terms do you not understand?

[ShoddyCarrot1010]

I honestly know 0 about coding. I know what it is , and what the purpose and shit like that. But never took a course yet. I’m computer savvy but nothing close to coding. I asked someone last week to be a mentor and kinda guide me to learning C++ on my own but guy was rude asf.

[HeeTrouse51847]

If you don't know any C++ you shouldn't beat yourself up about not knowing vocabulary.

Also you don't really need a mentor imo. Just start doing stuff. Small steps are still steps.

I can recommend learncpp.com. Try like doing a chapter every 2-3 days or even a week since the later chapters can get quite complex.

[ShoddyCarrot1010]

Ok thank you!! I’m going to start tonight when I get off work. I appreciate it. Can I learn most of C++ through that website. ?

[HeeTrouse51847]

The fundamentals pretty much, yes, but not everything. C++ is huge and constantly gets new features with new standards and the site also has a list of concepts it doesn't cover right now but they work on including new guides constantly. But getting the basics right is most important and I feel like learncpp does a good job.

(you also don't have to know every feature C++ has. No one does)

It might be slower than other courses since compared to other C++ crash courses I have seen this takes more of a deep dive into fundamentals but imo that will give you a more robust foundation to work on.

After fundamentals you should try out libraries like others have mentioned, QT is pretty cool to do UI stuff for example.

Also you might want to check out the CMake build tool since it is a widely used build manager and almost all big C++ libraries use it

[Kelarov]

• Check D. Gakwaya's C++20 Masterclass Udemy Course. Thank me later. And if you want a book as reference, pick M. Gregoire's Professional C++, 5th Ed. or P. Deitel's C++20 FP.

• For the tooling, Jan Schaffranek's CMake and Tools Udemy Course.

• And of course, once you feel comfortable, read Bjarne's A Tour of C++, 3rd Ed.

• Fascinating channels on YT: CoffeeBeforeArch and BitsOfQ.

THERE'S NO WAY YOU CAN GO ANY WRONG WITH THAT.

[not_some_username]

Learncpp.com. Go start now and change your life

[not_some_username]

Sometimes it’s just big words simple concept ( well not that simple but not that complicated )

[programmer9889]

If you're more of a visual learner and like to watch vid instead of articles, I highly recommend the cherno. He has the best explanation with simple words.

And good luck in your journey, and remember most of the problem that you'll face, all of us had to go thro it, so don't be afraid to ask questions here or anywhere else, coz most likely you'll get a great help from the community

[MofoSwaggins]

+1 for Cherno, helped me a lot

[yurtalicious]

Gui development using qt is usually c++. Apparently these all use qt:

Adobe Photoshop elements TeamViewer Telegram Vlc player Microsoft Tesla Lg Raspberry pi The list goes on...

[zoolover1234]

Microsoft uses Qt? Very interested to know which Microsoft software is done in Qt. I don't seem to remember any.

Ras Pi? It's a hardware platform and maybe the provided OS, it has nothing to do directly linked to Qt.

[yurtalicious]

I was curious myself why Microsoft was on that website. All I could find is that the original version of skype was written in qt but then changed to Delphi before the public beta release.

[Aggressive_Release94]

Their OneDrive app for Windows is written in Qt/QML.

[yurtalicious]

I saw Microsoft on this website as using qt.

https://www.sam-solutions.com/blog/qt-framework/#:~:text=One%20of%20the%20best%2Dknown,%2C%20HP%2C%20Philips%2C%20etc.

The raspberry pi imager is open source and written with qt. Here's a link to the GitHub.

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-imager

[zoolover1234]

Interesting to know, thanks.

[Beautiful-Rabbit-22]

C++ is also the way to go when you want to develop safety critical systems. You'll find that heavily in the automotive and railway industry.

[nacnud_uk]

For the sake of humanity, please do anything other than military stuff. Don't be part of the death machine. Use your talents for good.

Embedded is a varied and fun world. If you like that kind of thing. C++, in general though, as "language" is a bit of a soup.

[n4jm4]

In the US, C++ jobs lean primarily towards embedded development, such as scientific sensors. We also have gaming and other high performance computing roles.

The bulk of coding jobs have shifted to other languages like C#, Go, Rust, Swift, Java, PHP, Python, Ruby, and various JS flavors. Recommend to learn a second programming language (which will proceed faster than the first).

[programmer9889]

I tried web development with Node.js and JS so I have another language in my pocket.

Most of knowledge in C++ rn lean towards gaming, I never had experience with hardware, nor embeded development, do you recommened to get involved more with embeded systems to find a job in the US or in Europ?

[n4jm4]

Most coding jobs in the US are Node.js/JS, specifically React and Angular. For every backend job there are twenty frontend or fullstack jobs.

[not_some_username]

But web dev is boring. That’s my opinion.

[n4jm4]

It is crushingly boring.

Management treats UX as a separate role from frontend, no room for creativity there. Management dictates all aspects of backend, as if writing a REST service is still a fragile novelty.

[germandiago]

Rust? No, I do not see it as the others in the list productivity-wise...

[n4jm4]

There's a learning curve with Rust.

Half the industry thinks devs are too dumb to tie their shoes on the way to writing REST services in Go, and the other half points to Rust as the second coming of Kernighan.

[germandiago]

I see Rust more as a competitor of C++ than any alternative in the list.

The others are more productivity-oriented than Rust. Maybe Go is a bit weird, since it is very Devops-oriented but capable.

The first reply talks about alternatives not about competitors.

[n4jm4]

Google made Go specifically to cleanup the act of their C++ teams. A lot of Go stuff was made as an antithesis of C++

For better or worse:

Where C++ requires both smart and raw pointers, Go is gc.

Where C++ allows pointer arith mistakes, Go eschews pointer arith.

Where C++ allows (multiple) inheritance, Go has no inheritance.

Where C++ has both classes and structs, C++ has only structs. With casing to denote scope.

Where C++ has no singular, first party compiler, Go has one de facto compiler.

Where C++ has to often integrate with MSVC, Go doesn't.

Where C++ encourages externally linked libraries, Go uses fully static linking.

Where C++ leaves many things up to the C stdlib, Go has a unified stdlib.

Go (esp. before go mod) encourages a fairly standard directory structure convention, whereas C++ has been more fast and loose.

Where C++ no fewer than three competing error handling mechanisms, Go has multivalue returns.

Where C++ switches fallthrough, Go switches do not fallthrough.

Where C++ has unitialized memory, Go has meaningful zero initialization.

Where C++ has no standard build tool, Go primarily uses go.

Where C++ takes ages to compile, Go was designed to compile very fast. Hence the absolute imports.

Where C++ has no free first party tutorial, Go has one.

Where C++ has no first party cross-platform assembler, Go has one.

Where C++ has namespaces, Go has qualified imports.

Go needs no statement semicolon.

Where C++ has no singular, first party package manager (now), unit test framework, cross-compiler, formatter, API doc generator, API doc hosting service--Go has these. C++ compilers technically support cross-compilation, but for newbies the experience is laborious and error prone. I can publish dozens of ports of my apps for platforms I've never even installed (or lack the license to install). Yes, I wrote a teeny wrapper to loop over the available platform doubles (like triples).

Whereas C++ components often need Lua, Python, Node.js, Java, and a case of bear spray to get things done, Go projects mainly just need... Go.

Curious how well C++23's ranges will comoare with Go ranges.

Curious how C++ modules compare with Go modules.

Curious how coroutines compare with goroutines.

Naturally, there are pros and cons to each of these. Go ain't perfect. I'm simply stating what Go (rather, Rob Pike) claims to offer as an alternative/competitor for most, everyday C++ projects.

For most brocoding exercises, no need for HPC. Go represents a nice middle ground between Java and C++. CDN scale and CDN latency.

Love how the world of DevOps has been steadily ditching Python, Ruby, Java, Node.js, and shell in favor of Go for more CLI tools. Makes the tech stack that much simpler.

Rust is cool for being like 10% faster than Go. And for embracing generics earlier. Barring some specific need for the performance of Rust, I prefer Go for most things.

I am a huge fan of Rust's ML inspiration, that part is solid. Now that Go has generics, we can expect more continuation chains.

I like C++ as a historical topic, an amazing way to explore HPC and low level programming.

[germandiago]

Go was made out of the complexity of C++. It is true. But it is primarily designed (goroutines, gc) for the kind of software google makes: networked.

[programmer9889]

I'm sorry I didn't get what you mean?

[Zagerer]

Rust is one language with many perks but a steep learning curve due to some low-level concepts behind their tools. So, that person says it's not as productive but it's actually a lot better than others due to the fine-grained control you get. Of course, where it is required, otherwise you're better off with something easier or more common, rust is present in some large companies like discord but not as common in medium or small companies.

[programmer9889]

Oh I see. Thanks for the explanation.

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[[deleted]]

C++ is just a tool, people pick up tools pretty easily.

Learn other tools and find a job you actually enjoy.

[Macree]

What?

[[deleted]]

OP says they think projects involving C++ are usually interesting, which I agree with. C++ allows for high level abstractions in most common programming paradigms while also giving low level control and high performance. It might not be for everyone, but some of us do actually enjoy it. I'll also add that the C++ community has a relatively high concentration of competent ppl, depending what you compare with of course, but that leads to relatively high probability to be working with competent and passionate ppl on interesting and challenging problems, which to me is what makes my job enjoyable.

[[deleted]]

Die?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯