Moving out of C++ development

lenovoguy

Hey there

I've been a C++ developer for the past few years in a large-ish size software company, and I've enjoyed my time where I am and made lots of friends but I think the time is now right to leave. The reasons for this can be boiled down to the following:

- Building software using an obsolete technology stack (C++/MFC/COM)
As far as I can tell, the demand for experience with these technologies in the Irish jobs market is rapidly approaching zero due to the ongoing migration of software from the desktop to the server and mobile devices. JavaScript/Java/PHP/Python seem to be where it's at, currently.

- No documentation or coding style guidelines, and no code reviews, so development is one big free for all where anyone checks in whatever they like whenever they like.

- High levels of technical debt within the code itself due to downward sales pressure, weak and timid management, and consistent deferral of tough architectural / technological decisions in favour of "quick fixes," with no refactoring / pruning down the line, whatsoever. We keep lobbing in feature after feature without any real consideration for the future. We think very much on a release-to-release basis. This makes me fearful for the company's future as the product is increasingly coming to resemble a technology timebomb built using an unsustainable development methodology (or lack thereof)

The code is one giant big ball of mud, with lots of duplication (thousands of lines copied and pasted with only slight tweaks) , reliance on pointers where references would suffice, mixing of heap types, and global state with no synchronisation or concurrency safety measures despite the fact that all of our important functionality like saving and loading files occurs in their own threads, promiscuous data sharing and poor separation of concerns. Bugfixes often cause more problems than they solve because of the spaghetti-like dependencies between classes result in weird, unpredictable side-effects.

- high level of third-party dependencies which we are less than diligent at maintaining, and management are in some cases actively resistant to addressing due to the emphasis on new features over refinement of existing code. They enormously complicate our installation process as you can imagine as we often get stuck in dependency hell when certain application components don't work because they are missing, improperly registered yada yada yada.

- No room to progress - we have 15 developers, 7 started within the past two years, and the rest have been here 10 years at least, and probably will be here for another ten years, so we'll always be junior to them. They are so institutionalised at this point that they are stuck in a time-warp, leading projects using the tired and outmoded methodologies and technologies of a decade ago, and are kind of dismissive of some of the suggestions by the newer staff. Perl, Python, Java, JavaScript and PHP are not part of the vocabulary in here.

With all that in mind, I've tried moving into the mobile development market.
I find mobile devices and mobile development far more interesting than what I'm currently doing and I've built a couple of apps in my spare time and published on the Android market and the people I've shown them to seem to be very keen on them, but I don't really have any commercial experience, so I'm wondering how one makes inroads into this area career-wise. Anybody have experience working in that sectore that cares to share how they got into it.

Atomic Pineapple

I've been working in the mobile software sector for almost 3 years now, in a bit of a niche market with VoIP style apps in a small indigenous Irish software company so my experience may not reflect the overall picture of mobile software development in Ireland.

When the company I'm with look to hire someone they require someone who can show off at least one app published to Google Play/App Store/WP market.

They look for someone who can explain how the app works and why the user designed it the way it is. This is to find out if the candidate understands how to design for a mobile user.

They also look for some experience on one of the other platforms they haven't published for, so at least some knowledge of objective-c and developing for iOS or the equivalent for WP.

Colonel Panic

Wow, all that's missing from that rant is a Dunning Kruzer reference.

You've been there for years singing the same song on this forum and done nothing about it despite having upskilled via making mobile apps. I personally think there's still a lot of scope for C++ development AND doing stuff with C#, JS, Python and the like because I do it every day.

Have you updated your CV? Are you applying for jobs? You won't know unless you give it a shot. You seem to have a pretty good handle on how not to do things. I wonder does that automatically make you know how to do things right?

yawha

Nothing you wrote has anything to do with C++.

srsly78

Just make sure that in your new job you point out how everything is done wrong, but make no effort to fix any of it yourself.

Sparks

yawha wrote: »

Nothing you wrote has anything to do with C++.

True. I've seen that same scenario in companies working in mobile and on the web with several different languages including Java and PHP. Your problems, lenovoguy, are all HR/management/strategy problems rather than any particular language; if you take all the experience you have in C++ and go somewhere where C++ is in demand and has a better work environment, you'll be better served than you would be by trying to go to a different language just because it's got a better flavour of hype in the blogosphere

(Seriously, anyone who thinks C++ demand is trending to 0 in Ireland needs to do more research)