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I'm doing an internship at a logistics company, and we're building projects in .NET. They're keeping us away from the Cobol, but part of me really wants to lear

by zengid 8y ago

I'm doing an internship at a logistics company, and we're building projects in .NET. They're keeping us away from the Cobol, but part of me really wants to learn it. There are a lot of Senior Devs who only work in Cobol, and they're getting close to retiring. I feel like it might be a good trade to be an expert in Cobol and .NET, since most enterprises are going to have some of both. Any Cobol free-lancers hanging out here? Whats you're job perspectives like? Are you filthy rich?

marktangotango 8y ago
Cobol developer shortage is a myth. We’ve had 1000s laid off here over the past 10-15 years due to offshoring.
nathan_f77 8y ago
I investigated this recently after I read another article about COBOL [1]. My conclusion is that it's a much better idea to learn modern languages and frameworks, and work with web/mobile applications, or machine learning. COBOL does not paid very well for the average developer. I saw COBOL jobs advertised with salaries around $50k to $80k. Another article [2] talked about how "experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour" to fix up old bank software. That's a reasonable hourly rate but nothing amazing. An experienced web/mobile developer will earn more than that, and the work will be much more enjoyable: modern language and tooling, modern software development practices (e.g. test-driven development), plenty of libraries, lots of answers on StackOverflow, etc. [1] https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1316505/ https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1316505/ [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17C0D8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17...
- guitarbill 8y ago
  This is the dirty secret, and I think it's largely because COBOL devs don't create that much value. What I mean is, those systems are in place, have largely worked for years, and only need a bug fix here and there. For those, you can get some retired guy back as a contractor and it's still way cheaper than a dedicated COBOL dev. I don't think I know of anywhere that is writing big new projects in COBOL (I'd love to hear of counter-examples). Instead it seems like they've found ways of bolting on extensions as part of some middleware. So what's interesting instead is where are the rumours of a COBOL dev shortage coming from?

by zengid 8y ago

marktangotango 8y ago

Cobol developer shortage is a myth. We’ve had 1000s laid off here over the past 10-15 years due to offshoring.

nathan_f77 8y ago

I investigated this recently after I read another article about COBOL [1]. My conclusion is that it's a much better idea to learn modern languages and frameworks, and work with web/mobile applications, or machine learning. COBOL does not paid very well for the average developer. I saw COBOL jobs advertised with salaries around $50k to $80k. Another article [2] talked about how "experienced COBOL programmers can earn more than $100 an hour" to fix up old bank software. That's a reasonable hourly rate but nothing amazing. An experienced web/mobile developer will earn more than that, and the work will be much more enjoyable: modern language and tooling, modern software development practices (e.g. test-driven development), plenty of libraries, lots of answers on StackOverflow, etc. [1] https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1316505/ https://qz.com/email/quartz-obsession/1316505/ [2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17C0D8 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol-idUSKBN17...

guitarbill 8y ago
This is the dirty secret, and I think it's largely because COBOL devs don't create that much value. What I mean is, those systems are in place, have largely worked for years, and only need a bug fix here and there. For those, you can get some retired guy back as a contractor and it's still way cheaper than a dedicated COBOL dev. I don't think I know of anywhere that is writing big new projects in COBOL (I'd love to hear of counter-examples). Instead it seems like they've found ways of bolting on extensions as part of some middleware. So what's interesting instead is where are the rumours of a COBOL dev shortage coming from?