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Living and working in the UK for over a year now as a Software Engineer in a medium-sized company I see this article as a bit of a shock because every month I'm

Living and working in the UK for over a year now as a Software Engineer in a medium-sized company I see this article as a bit of a shock because every month I'm aware of available positions (including graduates) for developers that "want to get their hands dirty", i.e., working on core software tools like compilers and linkers and despite working closely with universities it's not easy to find new recruits willing to work on low-level development. I guess the reality can be different if we take into account the percentage of programmers that want to work on "web technologies" and that's a completely different market. All in all I think if one is a good developer, he/she will not have any problems finding a suitable position working on very interesting problems.

mickeyp 14y ago
Well, low-level roles are harder to come by, for one, but they also tend not to pay terribly well; especially as they're competing against Finance in London, which does. Here's my top tip for attracting amazing candidates: pay them a lot of money. Simple as that.
- ig1 14y ago
  Speaking as someone who used to hire low-level developers in the financial sector (i.e we could pay them an above average salary) I'd disagree. There's only a handful of universities now which teach C to a decent level, and if a candidate doesn't know C already it's very hard to tell if they'll be able to conceptually handle pointers and indirect referencing. So there's actually a very small pool to recruit from compared to the number of vacancies. If someone can't understand pointers, recursion, etc, then paying them extra money isn't going to make them understand.
  - Argentevenin 14y ago
    A lot of finance companies have rejected me for placements for low A level grades despite high firsts in all my CS modules, solid extra curricular's etc...
    - mathieuh 14y ago
      What A levels did you get? I'm doing them now. It's looking like I'm going to end up with AAB, kind of disheartening seeing people around me with A*AA though...
      - Argentevenin 14y ago
        I got BBC(Maths,Physics,Chem), My attitude to A-levels wasn't exactly great...Its not that bad tbh - Work hard at uni and you'll easily leave people that did much better then you at A-level behind in the dirt :) Also AAB gives you 340 ucas points which would be fine for every job I've seen.
    - ig1 14y ago
      The problem with unit grades is that they're not standardized across universities, so what might be a first at a lower-tier university might be a 2:2 equivalent at a top-tier university. Hence companies relying on A-Level scores and university reputation when filtering. What ECs do you have ? - that's probably your best bet of getting visibility. Assuming you're a second year student you might want to apply for a GSoC on a low-level project.
      - Argentevenin 14y ago
        ECs are Formula Student (Mostly embedded systems stuff, also did a lot of sponsorship getting organisation type stuff last year), Cyber Security Challenge UK (Got invited to a conference, have been told to keep the dates of two more face to faces clear...) and general member for one of the uni's bigger societies.
        ig1 14y ago
        I'd recommend contributing to an open source project that aligns with your interests, as that's much more understandable and verifiable to someone reading your CV.
        dr_doom 14y ago
        I don't know what any of those academic terms mean but what have you coded and are most proud of?
  - mickeyp 14y ago
    Well if we're talking about grads then yeah you're going to end up with programming newbies -- whether it's the right thing for CS programmes to churn out academics and not developers is a different discussion altogether -- but there's plenty of greybeards out there with C skills and what have you; and if they're smart, picking up C shouldn't be a huge challenge, nor should the other issues you mentioned. Again, with grads, it's hit and miss (is it ever not?) -- but senior developers who gun for low-level roles? Pay them enough and they will come.
Argentevenin 14y ago
I want to work in low level dev and I'm struggling to find anything...
- ig1 14y ago
  Where have you applied so far ?
  - Argentevenin 14y ago
    Arm, Qualcomm, various defence companies, Siemens(rejected A-level grades), IBM(rejected A-level grades), Microsoft(rejected A-level grades), HP, broadcom, BAE, Detica, Google for low level jobs.
    - TeamMCS 14y ago
      Any low level companies?
CWIZO 14y ago
Hey, do you have an email/twitter I could contact you on? I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind. Or you can shoot me an email (it's in the profile) if you prefer.

mickeyp 14y ago

Well, low-level roles are harder to come by, for one, but they also tend not to pay terribly well; especially as they're competing against Finance in London, which does. Here's my top tip for attracting amazing candidates: pay them a lot of money. Simple as that.

ig1 14y ago
Speaking as someone who used to hire low-level developers in the financial sector (i.e we could pay them an above average salary) I'd disagree. There's only a handful of universities now which teach C to a decent level, and if a candidate doesn't know C already it's very hard to tell if they'll be able to conceptually handle pointers and indirect referencing. So there's actually a very small pool to recruit from compared to the number of vacancies. If someone can't understand pointers, recursion, etc, then paying them extra money isn't going to make them understand.
- Argentevenin 14y ago
  A lot of finance companies have rejected me for placements for low A level grades despite high firsts in all my CS modules, solid extra curricular's etc...
  - mathieuh 14y ago
    What A levels did you get? I'm doing them now. It's looking like I'm going to end up with AAB, kind of disheartening seeing people around me with A*AA though...
    - Argentevenin 14y ago
      I got BBC(Maths,Physics,Chem), My attitude to A-levels wasn't exactly great...Its not that bad tbh - Work hard at uni and you'll easily leave people that did much better then you at A-level behind in the dirt :) Also AAB gives you 340 ucas points which would be fine for every job I've seen.
  - ig1 14y ago
    The problem with unit grades is that they're not standardized across universities, so what might be a first at a lower-tier university might be a 2:2 equivalent at a top-tier university. Hence companies relying on A-Level scores and university reputation when filtering. What ECs do you have ? - that's probably your best bet of getting visibility. Assuming you're a second year student you might want to apply for a GSoC on a low-level project.
    - Argentevenin 14y ago
      ECs are Formula Student (Mostly embedded systems stuff, also did a lot of sponsorship getting organisation type stuff last year), Cyber Security Challenge UK (Got invited to a conference, have been told to keep the dates of two more face to faces clear...) and general member for one of the uni's bigger societies.
      - ig1 14y ago
        I'd recommend contributing to an open source project that aligns with your interests, as that's much more understandable and verifiable to someone reading your CV.
      - dr_doom 14y ago
        I don't know what any of those academic terms mean but what have you coded and are most proud of?
- mickeyp 14y ago
  Well if we're talking about grads then yeah you're going to end up with programming newbies -- whether it's the right thing for CS programmes to churn out academics and not developers is a different discussion altogether -- but there's plenty of greybeards out there with C skills and what have you; and if they're smart, picking up C shouldn't be a huge challenge, nor should the other issues you mentioned. Again, with grads, it's hit and miss (is it ever not?) -- but senior developers who gun for low-level roles? Pay them enough and they will come.

Argentevenin 14y ago

I want to work in low level dev and I'm struggling to find anything...

ig1 14y ago
Where have you applied so far ?
- Argentevenin 14y ago
  Arm, Qualcomm, various defence companies, Siemens(rejected A-level grades), IBM(rejected A-level grades), Microsoft(rejected A-level grades), HP, broadcom, BAE, Detica, Google for low level jobs.
  - TeamMCS 14y ago
    Any low level companies?

CWIZO 14y ago

Hey, do you have an email/twitter I could contact you on? I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don't mind. Or you can shoot me an email (it's in the profile) if you prefer.