After this lesson, you will be able to: Translate C skills into resume bullets + interview answers for systems / embedded / security roles.
C is niche but well-paid. Embedded, kernel, security, performance work.
Embedded Software Engineer: $90-$180k. Systems Engineer (C / Rust): $130-$250k. Security Researcher (low-level / kernel): $150-$300k. Game Engine Programmer (C/C++): $110-$220k. Search 'embedded C', 'systems engineer C', 'kernel developer' on LinkedIn.
Skills: C (C99/C17), pointers + memory management, Valgrind + ASan + UBSan, Makefiles + CMake, multi-threaded C (pthread), POSIX, embedded debugging (JTAG / OpenOCD if applicable). Projects: pl-c-passion repo, GitHub, ASan-clean. Bonus: contribute to a real OSS C project (Linux kernel newbie patch via kernelnewbies, a Postgres extension, etc.).
'What's the difference between stack and heap?' 'Walk me through what happens when malloc fails.' 'Implement strdup.' 'Detect cycles in a linked list.' (Floyd's tortoise + hare.) 'Why is `int *p = malloc(100); free(p); free(p);` undefined behavior?' (Double-free.)
Two in 60 days.
Ship pl-c-passion with ASan-clean badge.
Contribute to a real OSS C project (small patch is enough).
Blog: 'How I found a memory leak with Valgrind'.
Write a small Linux device driver (loadable kernel module hello-world).
Learn Rust as a bonus, modern systems hiring favors Rust + C combo.
Listing 'C' with no public artifact. Skipping testing + memory tools. Not knowing Valgrind / ASan.
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