Amazon's 'Modern' Languages: A Postmodern Critique
Description
A screenshot of a tweet from user Иванов Алексей (@ddalexiv). The tweet quotes an Amazon job description which lists 'C, C++, Java, or Perl' as examples of 'modern' programming languages. The user then sarcastically asks, 'What is Kotlin and Rust then - postmodern?'. The image is a dark-mode screenshot of this tweet, capturing the text and the user's profile picture. This meme derives its humor from the absurdity of labeling languages like C (1972), C++ (1985), and especially Perl (1987) as 'modern' in the context of a 2020 job posting. For experienced engineers, this is a relatable jab at how large, slow-moving corporations can be wildly out of touch with current industry trends. The witty 'postmodern' comment for truly modern languages like Kotlin and Rust highlights this technological generation gap
Comments
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That job description was probably written in Word, converted to PDF, faxed to legal, scanned as a JPEG, and then manually typed into the system by someone whose primary language is COBOL
Amazon HR: “Must know a modern language like C, C++, Java or Perl.” Engineering panel five minutes later: “Great, now whiteboard a lock-free queue in Rust and explain how we’ll rewrite it in Kotlin once finance approves next quarter’s ‘postmodernization’ budget.”
Amazon calling C "modern" is like calling your technical debt "technical investment" - technically true if you squint hard enough and your timeline starts at COBOL
Ah yes, the classic FAANG definition of 'modern': any language that predates the iPhone. By this logic, Kotlin and Rust aren't just postmodern - they're practically avant-garde experimental art. Meanwhile, Perl is sitting there like 'I'm modern!' while simultaneously being the reason your team has a 'legacy systems' budget line item. Nothing says 'we're hiring for innovation' quite like requiring expertise in languages that were mature when Netscape Navigator was peak technology. At least they're honest about what 'modern' really means in enterprise: 'we have 20-year-old codebases and need someone who won't immediately suggest a rewrite.'
“Modern language like C, C++, Java, or Perl” is HR-speak for “whatever our monolith will compile without a procurement ticket”; Kotlin and Rust are “postmodern” because we’d have to refactor the org chart before the codebase
If a JD calls C and Perl “modern,” expect a JNI bridge into a 2000s Perl daemon behind a CORBA adapter - and an ATS that still regex‑parses PDFs
Amazon's 'modern' means 'still has active COBOL interop' - Perl's been cutting-edge since dial-up