4 ms·

"Experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour when they get called in to patch up glitches, rewrite coding manuals or make new systems work wit

"Experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour when they get called in to patch up glitches, rewrite coding manuals or make new systems work with old." Any contract-based engineer would charge that, or more, regardless of the language. Fortune 500 companies are happy to pay $300 / hour to a consulting company for engineering time.

randlet 10y ago
Yeah, $100 an hour for contract COBOL expertise sounds very low, but maybe I underestimate the number of COBOL people still around.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  A lot of COBOL stuff is cut and paste crap, or just updating basic fields. There are people paying as little as $35/hr for these types of people, although most of the people at that rate are barely qualified to turn the computer on.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    To be perfectly fair, turning on a mainframe or minicomputer is a nontrivial operation.
    - meddlepal 10y ago
      Any particular reason why?
      - samat 10y ago
        NOT QUALIFIED
      - pmiller2 10y ago
        It's a multi-step process, and every system is different. It's not just a matter of flip the switch and wait for it to come up. If you're looking at something really primitive, you might even literally have to toggle in a boot loader program. These 2 Youtube videos show how to initialize an S/390. The top comment on the second video is really good, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytMgyrZm87A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytMgyrZm87A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrKbh5HwF3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrKbh5HwF3Q
    - defined 10y ago
      This. Anyone who had doubts can get a stack of z/OS DVDs and the Hercules S/390 emulator and just try to get it to boot! Not trivial. Although I don't know if Hercules is still alive and hasn't been shut down by the suits.
      - skissane 10y ago
        Open source Hercules is still alive. Attempts to commercialise it (TurboHercules) ran into legal trouble with IBM, but to my knowledge the open source Hercules project hasn't faced any issues. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I don't work for IBM, etc.) IBM's licensing agreements don't allow you to run current versions of its mainframe OSes under Hercules. IBM will sell you an equivalent technology which you can legally run their OSes under, an x86 mainframe emulator called zPDT, but it is quite expensive (I have heard figures quoted like USD 5000). This is where TurboHercules ran into problems–they wanted to run current IBM OS versions under Hercules, but IBM says that violates their license agreements. TurboHercules tried to get the EU to force IBM into licensing their OSes to run on Hercules, but they didn't succeed. By contrast, you are legally allowed to run old versions, 1970s vintage–in those days, IBM chose to release its operating systems into the public domain. That has little practical use, so can't be commercialised, but lots of people do that as a hobby, and there is stuff happening in that scene. I recommend this distribution of MVS 3.8J if you want some basic exposure to MVS – http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/ http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/ – a lot of the basics, like JCL and TSO, aren't hugely different, although a lot of features you'd expect on a modern z/OS system (e.g. ISPF, Unix, Java, TCP/IP, peer-to-peer SNA) are missing in this circa 1981 system. It is also perfectly legal to run Linux under Hercules. I never have because it seems somewhat pointless–the differences between z/Linux and x64 Linux are minor–but I can see practical uses – you can port a project/product to z/Linux so your customers can run it on their IBM mainframes without you needing an IBM mainframe yourself.
        pnathan 10y ago
        > it is quite expensive (I have heard figures quoted like USD 5000). A bit of correction, I'm afraid. That's the cost for mid-shelf copy of Visual Studio 2009 or so. It's not expensive at all for corporate purposes at any company I've worked at. Top-shelf Visual Studio was set for 10,000 for a long time (some checking of current costs suggests they've redone their pricing model). Expensive software for functioning companies, broadly, might be north of $100K. I can't speak to specifics, of course. It's quite a reorientation of what "expensive" means when you get involved, even a bit, in corporate purchasing and negotiation.
    - StillBored 10y ago
      Ha, IPLing, seems to hardly be the problem. Its turning it back off... But then again, if you give up and use the big red switch its not so bad, but god help the next guy who wants to turn it back on.. <chuckle> What really truly shocked me the most was "installing" a zvm/zos stack without relying on a machine image. Gosh, i'm still shocked thinking about it years later. I remember "writing" (cause copy pasting assembly with the assistance of someone who knew what the hell they were doing doesn't really qualify) system hooks for things that literally work out of the box in any OS written in the past 3 or so decades. Stunning..
tyingq 10y ago
They don't give the context. Maybe that's $100/hr w2 for the end contractor after the "Cobol Cowboys" company takes their cut. Also, it's Dallas, where cost of living is great. 2300 sq ft houses on decent lots in good school districts for $250k.
- kbaker 10y ago
  (Tangent: The Dallas of >3 years ago had a good CoL. Everything has gone up $100k+ since and it's still going... Those same houses are 400k now. And new homes have tiny lots.)
inopinatus 10y ago
I just assumed that $100/hr sounds like a lot to the journalist in question and therefore "more than $100/hr" was simply their top categorisation of compensation. Bear in mind that this is something like four times the average in private industry, and fifteen times the minimum wage. My general rule for stories by journalists - even experienced ones - covering any technical industry is that their use of facts is often extremely loose, and if something seems awry, distrust the story first and question your understanding of the domain second.
- therealdrag0 10y ago
  My first job out of college I worked for a large-corp building a CRUD java web-app for one of their clients who implemented large-corp's backend. They billed the client 250/hr for my time (full time for 18 months). So yeah anything close to 100/hr is leaving piles on the table.
rimliu 10y ago
Maybe that was supposed to be $1000 but writer thought "no way"?
- alkonaut 10y ago
  It must have been $1000 and somehow a zero was lost. Financial insustry? Short term work? Specialist competence systems? There is no way it's $100.

randlet 10y ago

Yeah, $100 an hour for contract COBOL expertise sounds very low, but maybe I underestimate the number of COBOL people still around.

Spooky23 10y ago
A lot of COBOL stuff is cut and paste crap, or just updating basic fields. There are people paying as little as $35/hr for these types of people, although most of the people at that rate are barely qualified to turn the computer on.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  To be perfectly fair, turning on a mainframe or minicomputer is a nontrivial operation.
  - meddlepal 10y ago
    Any particular reason why?
    - samat 10y ago
      NOT QUALIFIED
    - pmiller2 10y ago
      It's a multi-step process, and every system is different. It's not just a matter of flip the switch and wait for it to come up. If you're looking at something really primitive, you might even literally have to toggle in a boot loader program. These 2 Youtube videos show how to initialize an S/390. The top comment on the second video is really good, too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytMgyrZm87A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytMgyrZm87A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrKbh5HwF3Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrKbh5HwF3Q
  - defined 10y ago
    This. Anyone who had doubts can get a stack of z/OS DVDs and the Hercules S/390 emulator and just try to get it to boot! Not trivial. Although I don't know if Hercules is still alive and hasn't been shut down by the suits.
    - skissane 10y ago
      Open source Hercules is still alive. Attempts to commercialise it (TurboHercules) ran into legal trouble with IBM, but to my knowledge the open source Hercules project hasn't faced any issues. (Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I don't work for IBM, etc.) IBM's licensing agreements don't allow you to run current versions of its mainframe OSes under Hercules. IBM will sell you an equivalent technology which you can legally run their OSes under, an x86 mainframe emulator called zPDT, but it is quite expensive (I have heard figures quoted like USD 5000). This is where TurboHercules ran into problems–they wanted to run current IBM OS versions under Hercules, but IBM says that violates their license agreements. TurboHercules tried to get the EU to force IBM into licensing their OSes to run on Hercules, but they didn't succeed. By contrast, you are legally allowed to run old versions, 1970s vintage–in those days, IBM chose to release its operating systems into the public domain. That has little practical use, so can't be commercialised, but lots of people do that as a hobby, and there is stuff happening in that scene. I recommend this distribution of MVS 3.8J if you want some basic exposure to MVS – http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/ http://wotho.ethz.ch/tk4-/ – a lot of the basics, like JCL and TSO, aren't hugely different, although a lot of features you'd expect on a modern z/OS system (e.g. ISPF, Unix, Java, TCP/IP, peer-to-peer SNA) are missing in this circa 1981 system. It is also perfectly legal to run Linux under Hercules. I never have because it seems somewhat pointless–the differences between z/Linux and x64 Linux are minor–but I can see practical uses – you can port a project/product to z/Linux so your customers can run it on their IBM mainframes without you needing an IBM mainframe yourself.
      - pnathan 10y ago
        > it is quite expensive (I have heard figures quoted like USD 5000). A bit of correction, I'm afraid. That's the cost for mid-shelf copy of Visual Studio 2009 or so. It's not expensive at all for corporate purposes at any company I've worked at. Top-shelf Visual Studio was set for 10,000 for a long time (some checking of current costs suggests they've redone their pricing model). Expensive software for functioning companies, broadly, might be north of $100K. I can't speak to specifics, of course. It's quite a reorientation of what "expensive" means when you get involved, even a bit, in corporate purchasing and negotiation.
  - StillBored 10y ago
    Ha, IPLing, seems to hardly be the problem. Its turning it back off... But then again, if you give up and use the big red switch its not so bad, but god help the next guy who wants to turn it back on.. <chuckle> What really truly shocked me the most was "installing" a zvm/zos stack without relying on a machine image. Gosh, i'm still shocked thinking about it years later. I remember "writing" (cause copy pasting assembly with the assistance of someone who knew what the hell they were doing doesn't really qualify) system hooks for things that literally work out of the box in any OS written in the past 3 or so decades. Stunning..

tyingq 10y ago

They don't give the context. Maybe that's $100/hr w2 for the end contractor after the "Cobol Cowboys" company takes their cut. Also, it's Dallas, where cost of living is great. 2300 sq ft houses on decent lots in good school districts for $250k.

kbaker 10y ago
(Tangent: The Dallas of >3 years ago had a good CoL. Everything has gone up $100k+ since and it's still going... Those same houses are 400k now. And new homes have tiny lots.)

inopinatus 10y ago

I just assumed that $100/hr sounds like a lot to the journalist in question and therefore "more than $100/hr" was simply their top categorisation of compensation. Bear in mind that this is something like four times the average in private industry, and fifteen times the minimum wage. My general rule for stories by journalists - even experienced ones - covering any technical industry is that their use of facts is often extremely loose, and if something seems awry, distrust the story first and question your understanding of the domain second.

therealdrag0 10y ago
My first job out of college I worked for a large-corp building a CRUD java web-app for one of their clients who implemented large-corp's backend. They billed the client 250/hr for my time (full time for 18 months). So yeah anything close to 100/hr is leaving piles on the table.

rimliu 10y ago

Maybe that was supposed to be $1000 but writer thought "no way"?

alkonaut 10y ago
It must have been $1000 and somehow a zero was lost. Financial insustry? Short term work? Specialist competence systems? There is no way it's $100.