I was in a similar boat in 1999 - you know, back in what people envision as being the "golden days" for C++. The C++ job market, even then, was crap. It was mai

I was in a similar boat in 1999 - you know, back in what people envision as being the "golden days" for C++. The C++ job market, even then, was crap. It was mainly used in engineering (sweat)shops that worked in highly niche, vertical markets and used extremely niche libraries and tooling. Switching jobs was difficult, extremely time-consuming, and often involved moving to another city or region. I can't imagine this situation getting any better in the 23 years since (and in 1999 I was a 13 year C++ veteran who could cite the ARM by chapter and verse and who had worked through the rough draft of what was to become the GoF Design Patterns book). The pay was also low - there just wasn't much of a market for C++ developers and the companies pretty much knew they had you by the short hairs. What did I do? Learned another skill that had much broader demand. In my case Java enterprise and application servers were just starting to take off and demand for anybody with any experience was skyrocketing. Well, I didn't have much experience but I did have 14 years of C/C++ experience so I found someone who take a chance on me. It paid off. In less than 3 years I had doubled my salary and employment options abounded. I was no longer stuck working for the C++ sweatshops. What does that look like today? I don't know. These days I'm using Python (a language I thought was utter garbage in the 90's!) to quickly build serverless AWS solutions enabling me to move "at the speed of business" as they like to say and having very little operational overheads so I can keep moving. I'm way past the age most people think of for a developer but I'm considered to be one of the most valuable assets in my organization - which is a Fortune 200 company - and I'm compensated like I'm one of the most valuable assets. My advice then is this - think about what the next stage of your journey is going to be. Realize that this C++ stage of your journey is over. Figure out what it is you're going to master next. I don't have any advice on what to do about your job situation as I've never quit a job before having another one lined up. You've learned that lesson the hard way so there's no point beating that dead horse. Good luck, I'd love to hear what you ended up doing!