[verandaguy]

While the economy's definitely in a shitty spot (and IMO heading towards shittier), I wouldn't necessarily take this specific line as a sign of the times. The author does outline reasons why demand for compiler engineers (and junior ones in particular) is likely low in her post.

Compiler development is (for better or worse) a niche that favours people who've got real-world experience doing this. The traditional ways to get in have either been through high-quality, high-profile open-source contribs, or because your existing non-compiler-dev job let you inch closer to compiler development up until the point you could make the jump.

As the author noted, a lot of modern-day compiler work involves late-life maintenance of huge, nigh-enterprise-type code bases with thousands of files, millions of LOC, and no one person who has a full, detailed view of the entire project. This just isn't experience you get right out of school, or even a year or two on.

Honestly, I'd say that as a 2023 grad with no mentors in the compiler dev space, she's incredibly lucky to have gotten this job at all (and to be clear, I hope she makes the most of it, compiler dev can be a lot of fun).

[ekidd]

Yup, I have been a junior compiler engineer at three(!) different jobs early in my career, before moving on to other stuff.

It has never been a huge niche. It's fun work if you can get it. There were often MIT grads around, but I don't think it made you an automatic hire?

Once in a blue moon, for old times' sake, I send a bug fix PR for someone's optimizer, or build a small transpiler for something.