Re: Are there jobs for professional compiler writers?

Christian Christmann <plfriko@yahoo.de> writes:


> However, I was wondering how a typical compiler writer's profession
> looks like. What are the problems one has to solve in the industry?
> And how are the chances to get a job? IMHO compilers are just a small
> specific area in the wide IT world.


If you're interested in seeing what kinds of jobs are out there for
compiler specialists, check out the Google newsgroup archives for the
regular "Compiler positions available" posts in this group, and/or
visit compilerjobs.com. I would say that recently the highest and
most consistent demand has been for experienced compiler engineers who
understand the internals of GCC well enough to do ports to new target
machines. Sometimes there are also jobs involving optimization and
performance tuning, implementing special-purpose languages (sometimes
for special-purpose hardware), general assembler/linker/debugger
toolchain support, automated source code instrumentation/diagnostics,
etc.


Yes, compiler work tends to be very specialized. OTOH, at the same
time it involves practical application of a lot of computer science
fundamentals: graph and set algorithms, parsing and automata theory,
computer architecture. If you're working on a special-purpose
language or targeting a specialized kind of chip (like a signal
processor), you'll probably also learn something about the application
domain in question.


-Sandra

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