Re:Ask HN: How to get a job as a compiler engineer?
by pm215 on Thursday August 25, 2022 @04:56AM
(#32591274)
Great point -- if you work for a large company, an internal transfer can be a great way to switch career specialties. Because the company already knows you well they're often willing to consider you even if you don't yet have much in-specialty experience in the new role. I got my start doing full time open source work by making an internal transfer (not in MS, different firm).
Re:Ask HN: How to get a job as a compiler engineer?
by bmitc on Thursday August 25, 2022 @05:12AM
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It is my understanding that the language teams of C# and especially F# are actually quite small, and I imagine competitive. I would wager that there's more compiler work to be done in Microsoft Research. This is a hunch based on things I have read.
Re:Ask HN: How to get a job as a compiler engineer?
by eru on Thursday August 25, 2022 @05:13AM
(#32591380)
Yes, but can't hurt to reach out in any case.
Anyways, many public-facing compilers (C++, C#, VB, F#, the .NET runtime as a whole, TypeScript) are in the devdiv org - if you look up Julia Liuson in the org chart and explore down from there, you can probably get a good idea of who you most want to grab coffee with (or whatever the remote work equivalent of that is now).
Outside of devdiv, there's also some esoteric c++ compilers, PowerShell, and SQL compilers housed in the windows and azure orgs, plus iirc there are some people who work on v8 fulltime around the edge team now, too.
Point is that you've got much more direct access to those teams and opportunities than most people already, being only an internal transfer away - hopefully you can make use of that.