There really are not that many Perl gurus extant. What a company can demand for a position depends on the location and the type of job; telecommute jobs are more hotly contested.

It’s trivial to write a “Hello, World” in Perl. So there are a million Perl acolytes. It requires as much discipline as any other language—Java, C, etc, etc—to be good at Perl. I am good at Perl, I do not consider myself a guru at all. I only became “good” after 5 years or so and I only stopped learning new things on a weekly basis after 10 and it’s sidling up on 20 and I am still learning somewhat frequently because the technology and ecosphere change rapidly and I pay attention when those that I consider gurus speak or post.

If you are willing to move, there are tons of Perl jobs without enough applicants. If you are looking for telecommute… you’re competing with a lot of folks, like me, and sysadmins are more in demand than Perl hackers anyway. :P If you really want a Perl job, you should buckle down, start contributing to the Perlsphere via github and the CPAN, and elevate your chops. It was 7 years for me before I landed a pure programming job that paid more than the design and QA and customer service and typesetting and teaching and … I’d been doing previously.

Hi Your Mother,

Thanks for answering. At my age (41), may be I am better off not thinking of moving into Perl Programming as a profession then. :)

FWIW, I am a bit older than you and came to (well, returned to) programming quite late in the game.

> At my age (41)

Piffle! I'm exactly the same age; 3 years ago, I quit a post-doc researcher position at a university and started my programming career.

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[download]

infact not the best place: try https://jobs.perl.org/ instead for a broad research.

I suspect find a 100% Perl job is not so easy, it depends on your area/country too.

my best wishes for your next job as Perl developer!

L*

"Are only Gurus recruited?"

No. And that's not the point. This respectively it's predecessor (made with good old CGI in a Perl 4 style) was my first serious Perl job. At the day the job was assigned to me i didn't even know that Perl exists. Other virtues matter: Being an adaptive team player for example. And if you are a sysadm Perl is anyway the ultimate tool for you.

My best wishes for your career.

Regards, Karl

Hi Choroba and Your Mother

That's awesome and inspiring, but I'm sure folks like you are super talented and therefore you could do it. But what about average folks? Also, are your jobs pure Perl or you also use JavaScript and/or Python? I keep hearing that there's more demand for those languages compared to Perl. Is that true?

My current job is mostly Perl, with occasional SQL (MySQL, Postgres, Vertica), bash, and sometimes Java (and elisp, guess what editor I use). The firm uses several more languages, but I'm still waiting for the opportunity to touch them.

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Lisp and editor? You are a Emacs guru as well then. Awesome.

My current job is mostly Perl most of the time but that often means understanding and working with transport layers and standards not directly related to Perl and a lot of front end development. The work is 85% JavaScript right now to complete a big front-end project. I am forced to do Java and PHP rarely for work.

If you are interested in modern JavaScript (ECMAScript 6), the work pool is lagging behind the technology and the death throes of Flash (ActionScript) and the acceleration of browsers picking up new standards mean that an ES6 oriented JS dev will be in demand. I’m trying to play catch-up there right now. JS still has some irritating wrinkles but it’s a more fun, useful, and interesting language than it used to be and it has a burgeoning ecosphere.

So obviously yes, there must be jobs for juniors in order to produce seniors.

Please note how I avoid the term "guru" which is not a description of a job role.

And I already met "X" gurus (= people capable of answering most questions about "X") who were actually bad developers, even for X = Perl.

You are asking this question on a very Perl-specific web site.

I suggest that you should not try to typecast yourself as a <<Perl>> (or anything else ...) Programmer.   Nearly all of the time you will be working on an existing system that might have been started in any one of several languages (and, versions thereof), and which might now consist of more than one (on both the front and back ends).   Once a course has been set, it does not change.   But, in terms of what your career might consist of, exactly which course it is does not matter too much.   You will be involved in a number of different projects, every one different from all the rest.

“Pure <<whatever>> ...?!” ... (Chuckle, Guffaw ...)

Versatility, willingness to accept (and to master) whatever language(s) you find, good diagnostic ability and great teamwork skills.   Those are the most important.

Regardless of(!) the language(s) being used, the role of a systems administrator and that of a software developer are quite different, such that in my experience many people who “see greener pastures on the other side of the fence” often return to where they came from.   Most developers actually do not have a guiding influence on the projects they are associated with:   they fix a lot of bugs and, when they actually develop something new, it is to fulfill a very narrow and precisely-worded change order.   They know exactly what their next year is going to be.   Whereas a systems administrator ... yeah, he provisions a lot of machines and answers the phone a lot ... has a job that is much more reactive.   You should spend a lot of time talking with people in your organization who now hold the job that you are considering.

Caveat lector

«The Crux of the Biscuit is the Apostrophe»

Furthermore I consider that Donald Trump must be impeached as soon as possible