7 ms·

Low level programmer here. This is great but the job market for low level programmers is very small. Recently, while interviewing, I described a thread safe, co

Low level programmer here. This is great but the job market for low level programmers is very small. Recently, while interviewing, I described a thread safe, concurrent queue implementation to a hiring manager and he asked me -- "so how does this relate to big data and ML"?

taocp 9y ago
low level programming knowledge is fundamental if you want to work with security research (software vulnerabilities, reverse engineering and exploits) and the job market at the moment is quite big.
- Arizhel 9y ago
  Sure, if you want to work for the government or one of its contractors....
- busterarm 9y ago
  I wish there were a clearer path to transition to that kind of work from web/backend development. It's something I dabble in and think I'm getting quite good, but unless I start publishing/presenting, I don't obviously see it leading to paid work. I have a lot of long-time friends in InfoSec but don't really want to exploit those connections to look for work (yet).
  - mentalpiracy 9y ago
    If not for employment opportunities, you should be (gently) exploiting these connections for educational value. They're in the industry and have likely seen examples of colleagues transitioning in from web/backend development. At the very least, they can easily tell you what mistakes to avoid. I often have the same mindset you do about exploiting connections, and although it's been a struggle for me to change my habits, using people as educational outlets has been something that I've found to be extremely helpful to me personally and also often enhances my relationship with that individual as well.
dbancajas 9y ago
the job market for burger flipping is high. LOL in a capitalist society, small/rare usually means high-paying! don't make it your career but it pays to know these things when writing your high-level code.
- sbuttgereit 9y ago
  Small/rare in the supply side is only high paying when the demand is not as small or as rare. It really depends on that relation. Based on the comments I'm seeing... sounds like everyone is talking more about the demand side than the supply side... which sounds either on the edge of oversupply or just plain oversupplied. Otherwise, I agree with you. Those that understand low level issues tend to, in my experience, just plain understand computing better... even if they're working in the deeply abstracted high level code.
  - chimtim 9y ago
    The demand is quite low. I think if you want a good low-level code implementation, you can easily find one on github. For example, you can easily find a good compression algorithm for your CPU budget or other application needs on github. So you can get away with mostly writing high level code and using these external libraries. Second, the demand for writing really optimized code is not as high as 10-20 years ago. Now, writing reasonably fast, readable code is OK and no one expects you to run gcc -S and count cycles unless you are working in some high frequency trading firm.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cookiecaper 9y ago
Yeah, unfortunately there are people behind the scenes pumping out a whole lot of BS and aggressively manipulating the dev ecosystem with VC dollars. You have to wonder what percentage of devs are jumping on these trains out of naivete and what percentage are jumping on out of cynicism, as both are good explanations. The explanation that rarely applies is "this is the best way to solve our problem". None of us should be so naive to believe that the developer market, or even subsets of the developer market, are a cozy little corner for engineers and tinkerers where rationality wins the day. It's big money (even if you don't pay anything for your tools), and that means that advanced marketing tactics are at work. Hackers are not invincible, though they like to think they are.
- bogomipz 9y ago
  >"Yeah, unfortunately there are people behind the scenes pumping out a whole lot of BS and aggressively manipulating the dev ecosystem with VC dollars" Can you elaborate on this? This intrigued me but I didn't follow your arguments after. Can you give a concrete or specific example?
  - fnayr 9y ago
    Yeah OP seems to be indicating that VC or some other actor is influencing the developer "market" to deflate salaries by inflating the supply of devs, at least that's what I'm reading it as, and I'd be very curious to learn more.
    - cookiecaper 9y ago
      I wasn't referring to the wage market, I was referring to the market for developer tools. However, VCs do deviously manipulate the wage market in early startups by pumping a false narrative about how it takes young (read: naive, as these are virtual synonyms) people to innovate, and how when the company gets really super duper big, the equity will make up for the crappy salary. This trick is used to get young people to accept an apartment split with 6 other "founders" and some ramen, or in the case of early employees, a salary 40%-60% below market, in exchange for a pull on the VC slot machine.
majke 9y ago
I struggle to find good low-level devs. It is surprisingly hard to find good C / kernel / network programmers.
- lj3 9y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what would it take for you to conclude you had found a good c/kernel/network programmer?
  - majke 9y ago
    Assuming a candidate without super-strong experience: 1) Good code sample showing non-trivial piece of code, ideally in C. (craftsmanship) 2) Reasonable github profile, showing ability to contribute to some opensource projects (which means: basic git skills, communication skills, testing) (craftsmanship) 3) Reasonable experience from CV (assuming we're not talking about hiring for junior role) (craftsmanship) 4) Genuine interest and experience in one of crypto or security or networking. (depth) 5) Debugging skills. Systemtap? Valgrind? (depth) 6) Basic understanding of different programming paradigms. Haskell, erlang, scala or prolog count. (breadth)
- AnimalMuppet 9y ago
  And, just out of curiosity, where are you?
  - majke 9y ago
    The company I work for is in London / San Fran / Austin and couple other smaller locations.
- itsokimbatman 9y ago
  You're not the only one. My company is desperate for good low level hackers. We can find people who know Python and Java for days, but people with the skill set we need are very hard to find.
  - 9y ago
fritzo 9y ago
What was your answer to the hiring manager? How about: "[buzzword] systems need lots of training data. To process that data quickly, systems must parallelize and distribute computation. Concurrent queues are a basic building block in parallel and distributed systems. They are used both internally in [buzzword] systems and directly by engineers building ingest pipelines and serving systems. Engineers need to know the trade-offs of different concurrent queue implementations to avoid introducing unnecessary bottlenecks in [buzzword] systems."
- HeavenBanned 9y ago
  I've heard people say: "don't say that managers don't know how to code; they'll be offended." But it seems quite obvious that you disagree.

taocp 9y ago

low level programming knowledge is fundamental if you want to work with security research (software vulnerabilities, reverse engineering and exploits) and the job market at the moment is quite big.

Arizhel 9y ago
Sure, if you want to work for the government or one of its contractors....
busterarm 9y ago
I wish there were a clearer path to transition to that kind of work from web/backend development. It's something I dabble in and think I'm getting quite good, but unless I start publishing/presenting, I don't obviously see it leading to paid work. I have a lot of long-time friends in InfoSec but don't really want to exploit those connections to look for work (yet).
- mentalpiracy 9y ago
  If not for employment opportunities, you should be (gently) exploiting these connections for educational value. They're in the industry and have likely seen examples of colleagues transitioning in from web/backend development. At the very least, they can easily tell you what mistakes to avoid. I often have the same mindset you do about exploiting connections, and although it's been a struggle for me to change my habits, using people as educational outlets has been something that I've found to be extremely helpful to me personally and also often enhances my relationship with that individual as well.

dbancajas 9y ago

the job market for burger flipping is high. LOL in a capitalist society, small/rare usually means high-paying! don't make it your career but it pays to know these things when writing your high-level code.

sbuttgereit 9y ago
Small/rare in the supply side is only high paying when the demand is not as small or as rare. It really depends on that relation. Based on the comments I'm seeing... sounds like everyone is talking more about the demand side than the supply side... which sounds either on the edge of oversupply or just plain oversupplied. Otherwise, I agree with you. Those that understand low level issues tend to, in my experience, just plain understand computing better... even if they're working in the deeply abstracted high level code.
- chimtim 9y ago
  The demand is quite low. I think if you want a good low-level code implementation, you can easily find one on github. For example, you can easily find a good compression algorithm for your CPU budget or other application needs on github. So you can get away with mostly writing high level code and using these external libraries. Second, the demand for writing really optimized code is not as high as 10-20 years ago. Now, writing reasonably fast, readable code is OK and no one expects you to run gcc -S and count cycles unless you are working in some high frequency trading firm.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

cookiecaper 9y ago

Yeah, unfortunately there are people behind the scenes pumping out a whole lot of BS and aggressively manipulating the dev ecosystem with VC dollars. You have to wonder what percentage of devs are jumping on these trains out of naivete and what percentage are jumping on out of cynicism, as both are good explanations. The explanation that rarely applies is "this is the best way to solve our problem". None of us should be so naive to believe that the developer market, or even subsets of the developer market, are a cozy little corner for engineers and tinkerers where rationality wins the day. It's big money (even if you don't pay anything for your tools), and that means that advanced marketing tactics are at work. Hackers are not invincible, though they like to think they are.

bogomipz 9y ago
>"Yeah, unfortunately there are people behind the scenes pumping out a whole lot of BS and aggressively manipulating the dev ecosystem with VC dollars" Can you elaborate on this? This intrigued me but I didn't follow your arguments after. Can you give a concrete or specific example?
- fnayr 9y ago
  Yeah OP seems to be indicating that VC or some other actor is influencing the developer "market" to deflate salaries by inflating the supply of devs, at least that's what I'm reading it as, and I'd be very curious to learn more.
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    I wasn't referring to the wage market, I was referring to the market for developer tools. However, VCs do deviously manipulate the wage market in early startups by pumping a false narrative about how it takes young (read: naive, as these are virtual synonyms) people to innovate, and how when the company gets really super duper big, the equity will make up for the crappy salary. This trick is used to get young people to accept an apartment split with 6 other "founders" and some ramen, or in the case of early employees, a salary 40%-60% below market, in exchange for a pull on the VC slot machine.

majke 9y ago

I struggle to find good low-level devs. It is surprisingly hard to find good C / kernel / network programmers.

lj3 9y ago
Just out of curiosity, what would it take for you to conclude you had found a good c/kernel/network programmer?
- majke 9y ago
  Assuming a candidate without super-strong experience: 1) Good code sample showing non-trivial piece of code, ideally in C. (craftsmanship) 2) Reasonable github profile, showing ability to contribute to some opensource projects (which means: basic git skills, communication skills, testing) (craftsmanship) 3) Reasonable experience from CV (assuming we're not talking about hiring for junior role) (craftsmanship) 4) Genuine interest and experience in one of crypto or security or networking. (depth) 5) Debugging skills. Systemtap? Valgrind? (depth) 6) Basic understanding of different programming paradigms. Haskell, erlang, scala or prolog count. (breadth)
AnimalMuppet 9y ago
And, just out of curiosity, where are you?
- majke 9y ago
  The company I work for is in London / San Fran / Austin and couple other smaller locations.
itsokimbatman 9y ago
You're not the only one. My company is desperate for good low level hackers. We can find people who know Python and Java for days, but people with the skill set we need are very hard to find.
- 9y ago

fritzo 9y ago

What was your answer to the hiring manager? How about: "[buzzword] systems need lots of training data. To process that data quickly, systems must parallelize and distribute computation. Concurrent queues are a basic building block in parallel and distributed systems. They are used both internally in [buzzword] systems and directly by engineers building ingest pipelines and serving systems. Engineers need to know the trade-offs of different concurrent queue implementations to avoid introducing unnecessary bottlenecks in [buzzword] systems."

HeavenBanned 9y ago
I've heard people say: "don't say that managers don't know how to code; they'll be offended." But it seems quite obvious that you disagree.