

Call Your Headhunter - signa11
http://bartoszmilewski.com/2012/02/06/call-your-headhunter/

======
100k
I recently attended the University of Minnesota's Code Freeze conference
([http://www.umsec.umn.edu/events/Code-
Freeze-2012-Continuous-...](http://www.umsec.umn.edu/events/Code-
Freeze-2012-Continuous-Delivery)).

While the conference is usually dedicated to "progressive" software
engineering topics (this year was Dev Ops; it's about 6 months behind the
hype) the area is not a tech hot spot. There are some startups and dev shops
doing cool stuff, but most of the attendees at a conference like this work at
big boring Enterprise companies (banks or Fortune 500s).

Inevitably, the question comes up (usually several times): "My completely
broken company won't let me use innovative technology X/methodology Y".
There's some equivocation from the speakers about how you have to change from
the bottom, keep pushing, blah blah blah.

I, on the other hand, get very annoyed. You want to work at a company that is
more innovative? It's far easier to _quit your job_ and _go work at a better
one_ that change the ossified organization you work for right now. I don't
understand why people put up with it, with the job market like it is right
now.

<https://twitter.com/#!/lof/status/157614221872463872>

~~~
rdouble
The startups I've seen in the area are not really much more interesting than
the Fortune 500 jobs. Working at US Health might be lame but is it worth the
pay cut to work at a website for high school volleyball games, just to use
Ruby on Rails? (or whatever)

~~~
100k
I don't think that's true. I'm fairly sure Rails developers can make more
money than commoditized Java programmers. I'm a consultant so maybe it's not
apples-to-apples, but my rate is higher than "software engineer (Java)" at one
of those Fortune 500s.

The key to a decent job is not working at a place where IT is a cost center. I
will be the first to complain that there aren't many startups in the Twin
Cities, but there are quite a few software companies and development shops.
You can find cool jobs doing Java (or whatever you want to do) that pay
roughly the same (or more) than the big companies that don't value software
development.

Anyway, my point is: if your job sucks, try a new one! You'll probably get a
raise for switching, and if you assess the new company well in the interview,
I doubt it will be _worse_ than your old job.

~~~
rdouble
When I looked around last summer, typical contract rates were between $50 and
$65 and salaries seemed to hover between $65-$80K even for experienced people.
This was for anything, Fortune 500, the Nerdery, random 10 guy consulting
shop, TST Media, etc.

~~~
100k
It's definitely possible to do better than that. Hit me up sometime if you
want to discuss it.

------
CoffeeDregs
tl;dr: organizations using '90s languages that forbid you to use features from
the '90s are bad and you should leave them. Note: I understand that C and C++
are still great languages/tools for certain tasks/toolboxes, but a blog post
about management not letting you using the STL is perhaps relevant only to the
Mil-Aero crowd. [Or am I wrong?]

~~~
mtviewdave
My last job was as a compiler guy at a large Electronic Design Automation
company. The product I worked on was written mostly in C++, but we weren't
allowed to use the STL. The reason was that the early versions of the product
were written before the STL was stable across all platforms used at the
company* (which included things like IBM AIX, HP-PA, etc.). So the original
developers (back in the late '90s) wrote a number of container class templates
that were used instead. Of course, once those were in place, you had to keep
using them, as mixing STL and non-STL containers would have been a maintenance
nightmare.

I would suspect there's a lot of old C++ software that falls into this
category. Especially if cross-platform compatibility was/is important.

(*Actually, it was often insinuated that the STL is _still_ not 100%
compatible between Linux and these more exotic platforms. I have no idea if
this is true.)

~~~
signa11
hmm, iirc, there used to be something called stlport by boris-fomitchev (sp ?)
a looong time ago. which would allow you to use at least the basic subset of
stl (containers/algorithms/iterators) across a wide range of compilers. not
sure how relevant it is today...

~~~
copper
It still exists, and it's still relevant /if/ you're in the situation Dave
above describes - and you have sufficient clout to get stlport included in
your code. In almost every other situation where you can actually use the stl,
it's probably a better idea to use the libs that come with the compiler.

------
cageface
Where are these companies desperate for C++ programmers? I've been really
enjoying getting back into C++ for some DSP work I've been doing. So much so
that I'd like to find a gig where C++ makes up a substantial part of the
coding duties. But the job trends I've seen seem to be towards higher level
languages.

~~~
rdouble
Google, Apple, Avid, Ableton, almost any HFT trading firm, investment banks.
Anyone not doing web software, or with web properties so large they have to
write their own web servers. This place in MN was offering $120K to C++
programmers last summer: <http://www.makemusic.com/> . Good salary and cool
project for that area.

------
suyash
Title is stupidly funny! If you're a programmer do you really need to call
your headhunter?

~~~
verelo
Maybe if you're just out of school? I know its hard to get in without
experience, but once you have it gez...the market is crazy.

