> Honest question: what field are you in which means your candidates are going to need to write custom allocators on a regular basis?

Embedded. :P

> What problems need custom allocators? I'm a fan of lower level details and all, but surely you can get away with one of the many existing allocator implementations when the problem to be solved isn't "sudo make me an allocator"?

Memory is being counted in kilobytes. Processing time in cycles.

I'm loving it, but finding others who feel the same, and who are serious about software engineering, isn't easy!

>who feel the same, and who are serious about software engineering, isn't easy!

So what you're saying is that you have a hard time finding people experienced and passionate about your extremely small niche? I'm sure I'd have a hard time finding qualified child neurologists willing to work for < 200k as well.

I'd hardly call embedded work an extremely small niche. Now, what he's doing on them may or may not be. But microcontrollers on the whole are a much bigger industry than personal computing. You'll find many more 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers in any given house than you will Intel or AMD 32/64 bit general purpose microprocessors. Last I checked approximately half of all CPUs sold globally were 8-bit.

Have you (or your company) given any thought to telecommuting? I know of one software engineer who would love to return to the embedded space, but would not be willing to move (he is right now, on a "working vacation" for the next three months some six times zones away from his current place of employment; his employers put up with this because he is that good at what he does).

Heck, I might be interested in the embedded space. I certainly have experience with Assembly language (several different CPUs) and C (for twenty years now). It would certainly be a change from testing call processing.