The issue for you might be ease of configuration, but that's not the issue I was talking about. It's availability of libraries and toolkits, which C++ still dominates in the realms of mathematics, graphics & video, GPU programming, gaming, embedded, networking, etc. And if there's something not available for C++ chances are it's there for C and easily used or wrapped.
Configuration management has indeed been C and C++'s weak point, but in the last 5-10 years things have definitely improved since the world of autotools and the like, and while I appreciate Rust's module and package system for what it is... I can get by with CMake + Hunter or similar systems.
And besides, for my day job (Google) it's either C++ with GN/Ninja or C++ with Blaze/Bazel. And that is also quite excellent for what it is.
At this point my career being able to quickly try out a package or rapidly add a new dependency isn't my measure of quality engineering. In my past life I was a Java developer and a big Maven advocate (when it was pretty new); and the world of bottomless dependency trees that spawned is not something I'm eager to repeat. These days I try to keep my external dependencies ... strategic.