

Ask HN: Where are all the programming jobs? - AncoraImparo

I am getting frustrated. I have a really good job at the moment. I am a software engineer for the new york stock exchange. I am seeking something in the USA which would allow me to relocate with a H1B to live and work in America. Finding potential employers isn't so hard. But finding something which actually fits under the topic of programming and not glorified web development is much, much harder. Every time I see a challenge these days as part of a job interview process, I end up having to go off and write something in rails, asp.net or even PHP. Where in the world are all the C / C++ and Java roles that used to be available in America? It has gotten so bad that there are literally thousands of employers moving to Europe to in order to get hold of programmers who develop code for these native languages. There has to still be some employers who wish to hire for these roles IN America, I just can't seem to find them anywhere is all. Does anybody know where I can find such employers?
======
kator
Not sure how to answer this without saying "contact me".

Let me try hard to add something of value while also saying "contact me, my
customers are hiring high-scale, low-latency, C coders by the dozens". :)

I started coding in C 30 years ago when we had machines with 768k of memory
and processors that have less power then the cpu in the elevator in my
building.

I have a theory that as cpu power, ram and other resources have scaled to
amazing levels more and more problems can be solved with higher level
languages without the need to eek every single cpu cycle or byte of ram out.

    
    
      "We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time;
       premature optimization is the root of all evil"
                -- Donald E. Knuth
    

I think it's perfectly fine to approach many problems with PHP, ASP.NET,
Python or any number of solutions as long as the problem is solved in a way
that meets the requirements. Not every problem needs to handle millions of
queries per second at the lowest latency and best cost possible. The speed
from "problem" to "solution" can be many times faster offsetting the potential
cost of running a couple extra servers to soak up the inefficiencies of the
system.

That said in my field of work we see 40 Billion transactions daily with
Million query per second spikes. In that world you can't afford to deploy
10,000 servers running a nice django server. You need to dive deeper and
deeper, ending up with front-line servers written in C and optimizing with
non-locking data structures and sweating over memory fences and cache lines.
This however is a rare slice of the total problem set that programmers have to
face every day.

IMHO it's the power curve of cpu power and resource availability that creates
a wider and wider gap between low level, low latency, high scale programmers
and many programmers who "get stuff done" perfectly fine every day of the
week.

I have posted before on HN about the strange patterns that are emerging around
the shift to "post-desktop" era, and this trend is also another topic of
interest to me. I have to wonder as Moore's law levels out who will be
contributing to solutions solved with 1,000's of cores on a chip and all the
problems associated with adapting problems to massively parallel
architectures.

I guess my answer is: Look harder, there are lots of low-level, high-scale
jobs out there.

~~~
tluyben2
Offtopic: 768k 30 years ago? You must've worked in a rich place :) Trying to
get an accountancy app in 128kb and that wasn't happening in C either.

Ontopic: programmers (good ones especially) are scarce they say and yet the
market seems overcrowded. I'm not looking but have plenty of friends who are
(not on location though, but they are very reliable, high quality and work
hard) and they are having a very hard time here in the EU.

~~~
kator
TRS-80 Model 16 with Xenix.

You could get upgrades to get them to 768k.

[http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/catalogs_extra/1984_r...](http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/html/catalogs_extra/1984_rsc-10/h004.html)

~~~
tluyben2
Nice! No-one I knew then had the cash for that then :) I have one of those
here now but not with the 768k extension.

~~~
kator
Funny but true I have a Model 16b but the foam on the keyboard keys failed so
I can't use the console anymore.. :(

I was so sad when I found this out.. I could boot the machine but could not
login to the console. It sat there waiting for me to type Control-D to go to
multi-user mode.. And tears sort of welled up in my eyes as I hit the power
button..

I love the days we live in, they seem like a dream from the days when I
started in computers. But once in a while I wish I could visit those earlier
days.

Sort of like a High School jock who's a security guard now and wants to
revisit his High School "Glory Days".

Except I am still in my "Glory Days" and enjoying every minute of it.. :)

But I still often long for those simpler days when thinking about how many k
Bytes I would allocate to solve a problem would cause swapping on the machine
and how to avoid it.. ;-)

But technology like life progresses on and we must adapt or die.. Me I choose
to adapt.. while thinking fondly sometimes about the simpler times.. ;-)

~~~
tluyben2
I just do both; I create web and mobile apps for my clients, games for my
clients and myself (the infinite cpu/memory kind; i'm not yet good enough to
pull everything from the metal on current computers) and, in my spare time, I
work with old hardware and software. Soldering and programming on 80ties
computers is relaxing and fulfilling just as I find modern tech to be.

------
borlak
I assume you'd be interested in startups if you've come to hacker news, so my
simple answer would be "San Francisco."

I don't know why you don't consider web development a 'programming' job. My
favorite language is C and I develop in it for my own projects, but I've had
just as much challenging work in designing PHP applications.

I've interviewed at several startups that had very difficult and interesting
challenges -- and working in Java, Hadoop, etc. So I either don't understand
what your real problem is, or you aren't looking hard enough.

Also you might consider mobile development, as Java/C++ can still be quite
heavy there -- although, things seem to be moving towards multi-platform
frameworks such as Adobe Air / Corona / PhoneGap etc.

~~~
evincarofautumn
“I don’t know why you don’t consider web development a ‘programming’ job. My
favorite language is C and I develop in it for my own projects, but I’ve had
just as much challenging work in designing PHP applications.”

Not to put words in the OP’s mouth, but I for one find that web development
usually involves _software engineering_ challenges more than _programming_
ones. By that I mean that you don’t necessarily get to solve interesting
technical problems, though there are certainly plenty of architectural and
process problems to solve.

Some people, myself included, feel much more engaged when there’s something
_hard_ to figure out, rather than when there’s just a lot of effort to be put
in. It all depends on what you like to do and what feels legitimate to you.

------
frozenport
This feels like nonsense. Some C/C++ jobs I have seen people get in the last
year. Notice that these require some low level internals knowledge and posix
experience. nvidia google microsoft navtec/nokia cray

Maybe you have too much experience in the other roles, and your pay grade
experience level corresponds to glorified web development?

You should apply to Goldman Sachs who are a Java shop. I think the Chicago CME
group also does C++. An enumerable number of hedge funds do C++.

~~~
AncoraImparo
Payment hasn't came into it for me yet, I am currently unaware of how much
money I would be earning in a role in the USA, and it isn't my main focus
anyway. Goldan Sachs have a massive recruitment drive on at the minute, but
because of my location they wont help me move, they only offer recruitment to
their London buildings. CME are the same, as they are moving a lot of their
development to Northern Ireland. Unfortunately. Is there a job market that
focuses on C, C++ and java roles, in the USA? I don't even need to focus
directly on the finance industry, I would be happy to move to another sector.

~~~
frozenport
HPC and big data are exclusive to the USA. IBM, Intel, Cray, NVidia, Amazon,
Nokia, Google have those needs. Its actually quite easy to name places.

That being said, showing an interest in Java is an almost immediate
disqualification. You need to be able to answer questions such as how to
vectorize a loop, structure of a makefile, how to build a cache, what is
thunk, pthreads, and sometimes you may need to be aware of BLAS. During an
interview I was asked 'who mom likes'. Off-course my mom likes me!

------
wglb
I would suggest Chicago. I have always felt that, from a jobs-available point
of view, Chicago is broader and deeper than most places in the country,
including New York. Technology jobs run the range of high-frequency trading
jobs where C isn't always fast enough to insurance giants like Allstate, who
when I last checked, had about 1000 IT-related jobs, a very large chunk of
them in programming. Financial modeling, data warehouses. Lots of Java, .net,
some C, some C++, Ruby, Rails.

While the startup scene in Chicago is not quite what it is on the west coast,
there is some of that in place. Lots of former startups like 37signals,
Groupon, kCura. And don't forget my buddies over at matasano for top
technological challenges.

~~~
chrisduesing
Agreed. Not only are CME/CBOT Java shops, but we have hundreds of fortune 500
companies with all sorts of internal tools, infrastructure and messaging
projects that are anything but light and fluffy. There are trading firms,
telco, retail, banking etc. Don't forget Orbitz, Chase, Motorola.

As for the startup scene, I agree it is not the west coast, however you are
selling Chicago short. We have 1871, Lightbank, Sandbox, Excelerate, etc.

------
redthrowaway
The sexy, talked about jobs are all in web and mobile development. If you want
"real programming" jobs, look to the old, staid companies that make B2B
software. I interned at Ericsson and the vast majority of development was done
in C, C++, and Java. They wrote control software for network devices, and it
was really interesting stuff to work on. You might find that in the
infrastructure divisions of Google or Amazon, but it's almost all you'll find
at companies like Ericsson.

------
mgkimsal
<http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=java>

Even many of these will have a web component to it, because... there's a lot
of business processes moving to the web as a delivery mechanism.

Funny you consider Java as a 'native' language. To the extent some of those
jobs may be being done outside of the US, it might be for economic reasons -
senior level C developers may be too expensive in the US to have lots of them.
I suspect, however, it's more a case of not having enough for them to do
relative to software higher up the stack.

You're living in a bubble working at the NYSE; few employers have needs that
are time-sensitive enough to be measured in microseconds, nor do most
employers have billions of dollars being exchanged every second.

~~~
kator
> You're living in a bubble working at the NYSE; few employers have needs that
> are time-sensitive enough to be measured in microseconds, nor do most
> employers have billions of dollars being exchanged every second.

Not true, I can think of several areas where latency and performance matter:

1) Graphics firmware 2) Audio/Video Real-Time transcoding, transformation etc.
3) Mobile 4) Wireless/Networking Gear etc.

I've personally written systems that have to respond in 10ms to 3.5 Billion
queries with 45k qps spikes.. They're are lots of places performance matters.

~~~
mgkimsal
relative to the large expanse of employers who _don't_ have those needs?
that's still a small base. I didn't say those jobs didn't exist.

------
mbreckon
I can't comment for the US as I'm based in the UK but I have been thinking
about this problem from a recruitment point of view as I muse on long term
directions for the company I work for.

I work developing applications in the engineering and CAD/CAM space for which
we need engineers who understand vector maths and 3D geometry,
memory/processing tradeoffs, multi-threading, C++ (for low-level and cross-
platform components) and most importantly the ability to think in terms of
systems and complex interactions between sub-systems.

I don't see this changing, yet the number of developers on the market in these
sorts of roles is decreasing (especially at entry level) and the cost of
employing those remaining seems to be increasing significantly.

~~~
r4vik
seems like you should be targeting burnt out games developers

~~~
mbreckon
We do have one working for us and this has worked out well. I think you might
have a point in your use of the word "targeting" - it raises possibilities of
advertising and targetted promotion outside of the normal channels.

~~~
r4vik
Should be easy to test this with a small linked in ad campaign targeting
people in games industry groups or working for EA. Other people you should
look at are those working in film/sfx they are notoriously badly paid and fit
your bill.

------
andymoe
I'm pretty sure my employer does not just do "glorified web development"
though I'd suggest you lose the attitude when you get here. The glorified web
programmers have us surrounded and there are plenty of good ones ;-)

<http://jobs.vmware.com/go/engineering-jobs/210703/>

~~~
kjackson2012
There might be Java positions in various groups, but VMware is having a hard
time retaining their top engineers after their IPO options completely vested.
Most of my current and former colleagues that worked at VMware say that all
the hardcore C/C++ programming jobs in the core virtualization app (ESX
server) are dead, they sit around not doing anything challenging anymore, and
that the C++ jobs you'll find working on the Virtual Center app are boring.

------
melling
I keep a list of startup-ups for NYC.

<http://www.panix.com/~melling/nyc/#jobs>

~~~
achompas
Here's another list:

<http://nytm.org/made-in-nyc>

There are companies on each list missing from the other.

------
greggman
<http://google.com/jobs>

We're always hiring. The Chrome team does lots of C++. The Android team does
lots of Java. I believe the docs backend and the g+ backend are mostly Java
though I've never seen them. I'm sure other teams use Java and C++ as well.

They have offices in NYC. No need to relocate ;-)

For tips see [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-
goog...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html)

~~~
evincarofautumn
Perhaps you can shed some light on this. In the relatively small sample size I
have[0], Google seemed _very_ dismissive of college students (which I was) and
those recently out of college (which I am). Is it that the hiring process is
designed to weed out the overmany ambitious students and recent grads who
apply?

I am employed now, but still slightly miffed.

[0] About a dozen technical and non-technical phone interviews all told,
between Google, YouTube, and a couple of Google Ventures companies.

~~~
ceras
I work at Google, but don't speak for them whatsoever etc. etc. Anyway, I'm a
recent grad, with many recent grad friends working here. I do not think they
are dismissive of college students at all, and I highly encourage college
students and recent grads to apply.

------
niggler
"Where in the world are all the C / C++ and Java roles that used to be
available in America?"

You are probably looking in the wrong places. There are plenty of C++/C/x86
jobs both in new york and elsewhere. A few places to look are in quantitative
finance (especially low latency trading), gaming (companies like id software
are pushing the line), hardware (nvidia etc hire lots of low level
programmers) and engineering (there are still _fortran_ jobs available)

also: you should put your email in your profile ...

------
dahumpty
Most systems companies (e.g., networking, storage) do development in
C/C++/Java. Have you checked 'em out?

~~~
vch
Networking, storage companies is a good option and if you get into core stack,
work is very challenging. You should be able to find lists like these online:
[http://www.storagenewsletter.com/news/startups/most-
promisin...](http://www.storagenewsletter.com/news/startups/most-promising-
storage-start-ups) You can also try contacting recruiters on LinkedIn to see
if they are willing to sponsor visa.

------
geofft
If you're specifically interested in leveraging your background in finance,
there are tons of algorithmic trading firms that are doing C/C++/Java work
with zero Rails in sight.

In general, there are plenty of things involving little web development. There
aren't many companies that have zero web development at all these days, but
there are plenty of roles / divisions at these companies that don't involve
working on the web stuff. My employer (MokaFive, see the previous hiring
thread) has me doing Linux packaging and integration work and hardware
enablement, crypto, filesystems, mobile development, etc. (Yes, that is a ton
of things; see also, we're hiring.) Google and VMware, mentioned elsewhere in
the thread, have tons of roles that don't touch the web. Most hardware
manufacturers want driver developers. Apple is doing a bunch of compiler work,
a bunch of OS development work, and so forth. Microsoft isn't killing desktop
Windows and Office anytime soon (and the online version of Office is certainly
not "glorified web development", if by that you mean CRUD apps in Rails). And
so on and so forth.

These roles exist by the bucketload in the Bay Area, in Boston, in New York,
etc. etc. I'm pretty confused why you're not finding them.

------
profchaos
I actually just left the stock exchange myself. And as mgkimsal mentioned,
"You're living in a bubble working at the NYSE." Work outside can be much more
diverse, even if it is just web programming. Depending on what you were
actually working on there (though lets be honest, its all pretty bad at NYSE),
I imagine you're focused on one tool or app that is running off legacy code
and magic.

That said, if you're interested in staying in the financial industry, I'd
suggest looking here, particularly if your interested in trading algorithms:
<http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com> The finance industry has demand for Java
and C, and I imagine that they would be more able to support your visa status,
although I haven't had experience with that myself. As soon as I posted my
resume here, I started getting calls. They will love the fact that you're
resume says NYSE on it, even if you didn't go anywhere near trading code.

------
asher
If you want a funded startup, you could start here:

<http://www.kpcb.com/careers>

If you want a big company, Google and Yahoo use a lot of C++ and Java.

My last two groups at Yahoo, before leaving for a startup, were C++ and Java.

Good luck in your quest!

------
Symbol
Lots of game development shops use C/C++ as that's the prima lingua for
today's consoles, and is native to iOS/Android as well. The games space is
rapidly shifting, so there's interesting stuff emerging from the chaos. If you
are willing to come to Boston, I'm happy to talk more about opportunities.

------
craftman
I suggest you to move to Erlang. This is the best platform to create great
systems (including web, but not only) and allowing skilled professional
programmers to express their full potential.

------
watty
Where are you looking? I find it hard to believe you can't find any non-web
programming positions, they're around. A quick search on monster.com shows
thousands of them in America.

~~~
AncoraImparo
Thanks, I will look there. I had been mainly looking on the Who's hiring posts
of HN, but the few native development roles there are don't offer H1B visa
support. I had seen a role or two on monster, but none of the employers there
are willing to bring in a developer who needs a H1B. Thanks for your input
though, it is very much appreciated.

~~~
Ralith
> I had been mainly looking on the Who's hiring posts of HN

Well, there's your problem. HN consists mostly of web developers/startups.

------
joshbuddy
At Leap Motion we're doing some pretty bad ass C++. If you're serious, and see
any good fits, feel free to email me back. jhull is the name part of my email
address :)

~~~
AncoraImparo
I sent you an email! Thanks.

------
huhtenberg
> _It has gotten so bad that there are literally thousands of employers moving
> to Europe to in order to get hold of programmers who develop code for these
> native languages._

Care to elaborate? How did you arrive to this conclusion?

~~~
AncoraImparo
I live in Europe, I see it every, single, day.

~~~
huhtenberg
Can I ask which country? I'm too here and I am not seeing this at all.

(edit) Also, I would guess that you are partial to the outsourced development
domain. That would explain why you see things that way.

~~~
AncoraImparo
Not outsourced at all, I live in Ireland. Many American companies are here
now. My current employer does all development here.

------
duiker101
I know you are looking in the USA but i'd like just to point out that in
Cambridge UK there are many many ,well paid, programming jobs, because it
seems there is quite a lack of programmers but there are many companies!

~~~
alecco
Cambridge is an amazing place to live and it's full of interesting people. But
salaries are quite low there.

------
Rimpinths
BATS Exchange in Kansas City is hiring C++ programmers. Needless to say, your
background would be ideal.

<http://bats.com/about/careers/>

~~~
clebio
Hi Rimpinths, not to hi-jack Ancora's thread, but I'm in KC and would be
interested to talk, if you have some time.

------
arikrak
There are over 30,000 jobs listed on SimplyHired with "Java" in the title.
<http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobs/list/t-java>

------
keefe
java is still the biggest demand out there

just note that sponsoring an H1B is a complicated and at least reasonably
costly and ask yourself, who is going to be willing to do that? Probably a
more established company vs a startup, so checkout crunchbase for Series C
funding and checkout the large software companies based in silicon valley.

otherwise just do the normal stuff check SF craigslist to start, dice.com and
find speciality boards in your areas of interest (e.g. kdnuggets board for ML)

------
redwood
There are probably some on offer in Silicon Valley :) Probably many in fact.
Are you in NYC now? or not in the US yet?

------
jfisk87
agreed with the rest, tons of these jobs are in SF. Mobile development is also
huge and salary on the rise if thats your thing.

