This is just an anedoctal observation, don't generalize based on just this. It's something I've been thinking for a while.

I've been on development since the end of the 90s. I noticed that in the last positions, I did much more interviews for higher level languages then for C and C++, but got jobs on the fewer interviews that were looking for C and C++.

There's many other variables, I think more than half the ones I landed I had strong referrals from people that already worked with me.

The referrals were the most important thing to bypass being poor at interviewing, but with C++ it is a smaller world around here, and there is less people to compete with the referrals themselves. There isn't as many people that you reference for those.

I'm wondering what other modern languages I should build experience on to future proof myself a little better.

I like Rust, I'm using it in some smaller things. I didn't see much of it out of the blockchain market until I noticed Lemmy.

There is Golang love the idea that they focus on fast build times. At my current job I have projects that take 1h to 4h to compile on C++, if it was golang it would be so much better.

The stackoverflow survey says that Clojure is the most well paid programming language. Chances are it got it's status for both being niche and having positions available for it, that is a good signal that they could hire someone that is bad at interviewing (probably not with the salary they said on the stackoverflow survey).

I suspect Closure isn't easy to move into. Being niche and the language that pays better, something is keeping people away from it, and I don't know what it is yet.