Probably because your optionality is so low. If you invest the time to learn this and then don't get a $350k job, what's your recourse? Furthermore, the applications of KDB+ in broader industry are few, so you won't come out of finance with a valued skill. The practitioners of this obscure skill are therefore bimodal in their distribution of pay: those who get a job working with KDB+ and those who don't and wonder why they wasted their time. I think a better relatively obscure language would be a functional language like OCaml or Reason or Rust.

The article also notes that most of the work is project-based as well. So it's effectively contract work.

Contract work in London pays a premium I believe.

Contract work pays around 2x the equivalent salary, and maybe around 1.5x after you account for lack of paid holidays, sick days, employer pension contributions, and downtime between contracts (although this can vary a lot depending on your particular circumstances)

I’m not a fan of this style of language. It reminds me of learning Chinese characters again. I like alphabets.

Here is an example of K from Wikipedia: 2_&{&/x!/:2_!x}'!R

I know some people prefer operator heavy languages but it’s just not my cup of tea. I feel like they have unnecessarily steep learning curves.

Ps. It lists all the prime numbers between 1 and R. Did you guess that?

The article's answer is obvious: it's an extremely niche language and people learn it when they need to, using the proprietary system paid for by their employer. Supply meets demand perfectly, and people learn it when they are paid to.

Makes me wonder about all these shortages in labor markets where companies complain about their inability to find qualified staff.

Can confirm the gist of the article but I wouldnt say its the "hottest" coding language in finance. It is largely used in electronic trading for realtime and historical DB's that algo's interface with to determine pricing models. Also true that experienced KDB Devs and KDB DBA's are rare to come by.

There are two kdb consulting companies in Northern Ireland, FD who own Kx, and AquaQ. Working here in London, you can’t move for FD and AquaQ consultants. I wouldn’t be surprised if they saturate the kdb job market, as both companies are on a massive hiring spree.

From what I've heard in the industry, Q is on its way out.

I work in the industry and have not heard this, but curios as to what will be its replacement?

Curious if Whitney agreed to a non-compete when he formed Shakti[1], or if Shakti is supposed to complete gracefully against Kx Systems when it's finally ready.

[1] https://shakti.com/executive-team/