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@profquail: First of all those links are meaningless given the scarcity of F# positions. You just can't compare them statistically. Second of all if you look c

@profquail: First of all those links are meaningless given the scarcity of F# positions. You just can't compare them statistically. Second of all if you look closely at actual positions then it turns out they are not F#-centric at all, more like "Scala, F#, Erlang, Haskell knowledge is a plus". I mean people who use F# were hired not because they knew F# well but for other skills - e.g. deep knowledge of finance, distributed computing etc. Why not focus on learning that instead? Nobody pays 100k for F# alone. I might be wrong but I just don't see it as a skill that sets you apart that much. People are more interested in HTML5 :(.

profquail 13y ago
With languages like C#, Java, Python, C++, etc., job postings often ask for experience with that specific language. Sometimes you'll see postings which allow developers to jump back and forth between C# and Java, but that's about it. With functional languages, the specific language is much less important, because the languages share many features, and the real key is that you understand how to design and structure functional programs. Along with the fact that functional languages -- even the popular ones -- have much smaller developer bases than your mainstream imperative languages, many job postings for functional programmers list multiple languages just as you described. And you're right, no one's going to pay you 100k just for knowing F#. That's true for any language at any salary point though. What companies are looking for are those other skills; F# developers generally command higher salaries because they're often highly skilled senior developers, not because of their language preferences.
- tonyedgecombe 13y ago
  F# developers generally command higher salaries because they're often working in the financial sector.
  - profquail 13y ago
    Many F# developers work in the financial sector (myself included). Working in the financial sector isn't some magic ticket to a higher salary though, i.e., given an engineer who makes $X in some other industry, they're not automatically going to make 2 * $X just because they switch to finance. The reason salaries are higher in finance is because it's really worth the investment for financial companies to spend extra money to hire the most highly-skilled engineers (and other staff) they can find. Some other industries (e.g., aerospace) have similar requirements, so salaries are higher than normal there as well.

profquail 13y ago

With languages like C#, Java, Python, C++, etc., job postings often ask for experience with that specific language. Sometimes you'll see postings which allow developers to jump back and forth between C# and Java, but that's about it. With functional languages, the specific language is much less important, because the languages share many features, and the real key is that you understand how to design and structure functional programs. Along with the fact that functional languages -- even the popular ones -- have much smaller developer bases than your mainstream imperative languages, many job postings for functional programmers list multiple languages just as you described. And you're right, no one's going to pay you 100k just for knowing F#. That's true for any language at any salary point though. What companies are looking for are those other skills; F# developers generally command higher salaries because they're often highly skilled senior developers, not because of their language preferences.

tonyedgecombe 13y ago
F# developers generally command higher salaries because they're often working in the financial sector.
- profquail 13y ago
  Many F# developers work in the financial sector (myself included). Working in the financial sector isn't some magic ticket to a higher salary though, i.e., given an engineer who makes $X in some other industry, they're not automatically going to make 2 * $X just because they switch to finance. The reason salaries are higher in finance is because it's really worth the investment for financial companies to spend extra money to hire the most highly-skilled engineers (and other staff) they can find. Some other industries (e.g., aerospace) have similar requirements, so salaries are higher than normal there as well.