By Amanda Kavanagh

While tech sectors like healthcare, climate tech and cybersecurity are urgently focused on retraining in AI, it’s not quite as important for other programmers.

That’s according to Christian Rebernik, co-chief executive and co-founder of Tomorrow University of Applied Sciences, who reckons you don’t need to throw the baby out of the bath water, and ditch your expertise for AI.

In an interview with the Financial Times, he makes this recommendation: “You can secure yourself, if you are a top-tier expert who can help teach AI in your field . . . [you can] earn from training models on data set created by you.”

3 high-paying roles to apply for today

• DevOps Engineer, Accenture Federal Services, Chantilly ($76,000 - $144,000)
• Principal DevOps Engineer, Autodesk, TX ($141,400 - $228,800)
• Staff/Sr. Staff DevOps Engineer, SciTec, Boulder ($93,000 - $137,000)

The key is deep knowledge. As subject matter expertise really matters when it comes to creating the best prompts, once you’ve an understanding of prompt engineering, and experiment with AI tools in your day-to-day life, that may be enough for now.

This frees programmers up to focus on the languages making waves in the coding community; here we’ll look at three of the newest and well-paid languages of the moment.

Zig

Created by Andrew Kelley in 2015, Zig is pitched as a general purpose language and as a modern alternative to C, but it’s still relatively obscure.

In a Stack Overflow survey of 89,184 software developers across 185 countries, just 0.83% reported proficiency in Zig.

However, the same survey also found that Zig developers command the highest median salaries on average.

Median earnings of $103,000 may be pocket change to some in highly-paid AI roles, and it won’t put you in the top 10% of earners in the U.S. – you’ll need to be on $167,639 for that – but it’s the only programming language that hits six figures in the Stack Overflow survey.

The next closest is Erlang ($99,492), F# ($99,492), Ruby ($98,522), and in fourth place, the former 2022 leader, Clojure ($96,381).

Comparatively, the bottom four are: Visual Basic (.Net) with $65,000 median pay, MATLAB with $61,735, PHP at $58,899, and Dart, which commands the least at $55,862.

Because Zig is compatible with C codebases, it may be readily incorporated with current projects, making it a solid option for systems development, embedded systems, game design, and scripting.

Non-profit Zig boasts a vibrant contributor community where developers are invited to utilize it for personal open-source projects, allowing real-world problems to surface and be resolved in real-time.

Its rarity makes it something of a risk, as you may have to plug and play, figuring out mistakes as you go. Depending on the pace in your current role, this may or may not be possible.

But clearly, there can be salary gains if you can find a company that utilizes and values Zig.

Finch

Finch is the latest programming language from MIT, which was announced earlier this year. It aims to resolve the challenges associated with computing over-structured arrays.

Finch does this by providing a programming model that unifies control flow and diverse data structures into a single representation that allows for co-optimization.

Specifically, it automates the control flow to the data, freeing up performance engineers to experiment with many algorithms.

MIT says that Finch is, to the best of its knowledge, the first programming language to support affine indexing or scatter/gather of sparse or structured operands, as well as if-conditions, early breaks, and multiple left hand sides over structured data.

Early-adopters are praising the time-saving automatic specialization and smooth control flow, particularly in fields like image processing and scientific computing, where structured data is essential.

Being a complete newbie, Finch doesn’t have a vast library of tools and frameworks to refer to, meaning it’s not really suitable for large-scale projects just yet.

But if you’re a keen early-adopter, Finch is one to watch, and as the community expands, it may become a very valuable tool in the near future.

Swift

Apple’s Swift has been knocking around for a decade, but its next iteration – Swift 6 – is slated for release later this year. This is the first major update since Swift 5, five long years ago.

This release expands upon the async/await, existentials, and macros capabilities that were first included in the Swift 5.x series.

Apple director of languages and runtimes, Ted Kremenek says, “Swift’s safety, speed, and approachability, combined with built-in C and C++ interoperability, mean Swift is the best choice to succeed C++.”

Meanwhile, forums and blogs are already advising programmers on how to migrate projects across, which is expected to be tricky for legacy codebases.

3 great tech jobs hiring now

• DevOps Engineer - Sports Technology, Electronic Arts, Orlando
• Sr. DevOps Engineer - Store Frontend, hims & hers, San Francisco ($155,000 - $175,000)
• Senior Engineer Fullstack (Java), GTT LLC, Chevy Chase

The good news is there is clear demand for Swift programmers. According to jobs site Indeed, iOS developers and senior mobile developers are sought after in major companies all over the world, including Accenture, DataAnnotation, and Netflix.

It’s widely-accepted that for a long, productive, and well-paid career in programming, developers must always move with the times.

Ideally, your existing role will allow time for experimentation and upskilling, enabling you to explore these languages and integrate them into your projects.

But if upskilling isn’t a priority in your workplace, it could be time to look for something new.

Ready to find your next role in tech? Whether you want to pivot to AI or put your coding expertise to good use, visit the Hackernoon Job Board today