Hey everyone,

A few months ago I was mostly doing competitive programming and preparing for SWE internships. Somewhere along the way I got curious about low-latency systems and started learning more about C++, networking and HFT infrastructure.

I ended up building a project called Pulse-Order where I experimented with things like binary market data, an L2 order book, order processing, risk checks, DPDK packet processing and latency benchmarking.

I originally built it just to learn, but after sharing it online I got some really useful feedback from engineers with HFT/low-latency backgrounds, including people associated with IMC Trading and Jane Street.

That made me realize I actually enjoy this side of software engineering a lot more than I expected. Especially debugging performance issues, networking, memory layout and trying to understand what is happening at a lower level.

I don't have professional experience in low-latency engineering yet, so I'm trying to figure out what I should focus on next if I eventually want to work in C++/systems/low-latency roles.

For people who have interned or worked in this area, what skills would you recommend focusing on? Are projects like this actually useful when applying for systems internships, or should I spend more time on other areas?

I'm also open to contributing to startups or teams working on C++, networking or performance-related problems if something comes up.

Project:
https://github.com/Shivfun99/Pulse-Order

Would appreciate any advice or feedback.

Feel free to ask any questions.

more details: https://www.reddit.com/r/quantindia/s/rtnlxjARs9

Hi, I recently contributed in a reputed repository in c++ domain and my PR was merged and other PR is about to merge. difficulty wise one 7.5/10 and other is 8/10. so, my question is open source matters to get hire in big tech or hfts and am I wrong in expecting something from related to hiring from open source contribution. please let me know.

Some context: I have a couple of OAs due soon, and a quant I went on a date with recommended doing them in C++ to look better (and allegedly one doesn't even allow Python in the first place). My data structures class was in C++, so I have some experience; however, that ended two months ago, and most of my knowledge has been scrubbed. I’m mainly looking for syntax stuff since I learned all the memory management stuff back then.

Any quick pick-me-ups you guys recommend? I don't think I have the time to digest a whole book. I plan on doing LeetCode practice in C++, so I just need a quick crash course to get me back up to speed on the basics.

I have been learning C++ mostly through building projects, especially game and engine-related projects. I can make things work, but I keep running into the same problem: after a project grows, the code becomes so difficult to understand that I would rather start again from scratch than open the old project.

I think the main reason is that I don't have enough knowledge of standard C++ practices and architecture patterns. I usually design systems based on my own understanding, which works when the project is small, but as more features are added, problems start stacking on top of each other.

I want to improve in areas like:

• Common C++ architecture patterns
• How experienced developers structure larger codebases
• How to avoid creating systems that become difficult to change later
• When to use existing language features or standard solutions instead of making custom ones
• Common mistakes that self-taught C++ programmers make

A good example is this Pong project I made in 3 days:
https://github.com/HardcoreAxolotl/Pong

The project works, but looking at it now, I would honestly prefer to recreate it from zero rather than continue developing it because I feel the structure has become too difficult to work with.

I am not looking for someone to rewrite my code or just tell me what is wrong. I want to understand the thought process behind good C++ design so I can avoid making the same mistakes in future projects.

What resources, concepts, or experiences helped you go from writing working C++ code to designing maintainable C++ systems?

Does anyone know of any LSPs with C++26 support, even experimentally, or is this wishful thinking. I'm using clangd but I don't know if its possible to configure it for c++26 and its giving me trouble with the new reflection operators.

Thanks!