5 ms·

Yep you're right as much as I wish it wasn't the case, if two candidates were identical except one had skills in cutting edge technology and the other had skill

Yep you're right as much as I wish it wasn't the case, if two candidates were identical except one had skills in cutting edge technology and the other had skills in older tech I would pick the newer May just be the business we're in but I feel going with the old limits your breadth (but maybe with a higher price tag? COBOL?)

marvin 8y ago
You wouldn't choose a top-tier React & AWS dev if your veteran Cobol dev had just died of old age and your business-critical Cobol & SAP monstrosity needs urgent changes to handle this years's tax compliance updates. In that situation, you'll pay the $20000/week or whatever oaiey quotes you. All right, so maybe you feel bad now about not listening to the engineering team and maintaining a continuous migration of your business-critical code to modern platforms over the last 30 years. But that's all in the past and your million-dollar business will be shuttered by the tax authorities in three months if you don't get this sorted out right now. Maybe we'll have a world one day where everyone knows the "obvious" fact of technology leadership that everything should be continuously migrated to the state of the art. But maybe we won't, and maybe this fact isn't obvious at all, or even correct. Who knows? In the meantime, people with skills that have an extreme demand/supply factor can command the highest rates, even if they won't be hired at tomorrow's startup. That's not to say it's a bad idea to learn current skills (for diversification), and definitely say no to working with legacy tech for small money, but that's really an orthogonal point to the one oaiey was making.
- nathan_f77 8y ago
  > In that situation, you'll pay the $20000/week or whatever oaiey quotes you. I looked into this recently, because I wanted to see if it would be worth learning COBOL to help maintain old banking systems. Unfortunately the pay is nowhere near $20000 / week, and experienced COBOL programmers typically make around $100 per hour, or $70k per year at a full-time job. Right now you can make much more money with modern web and mobile development. Here's some previous discussion about COBOL rates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14083214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14083214 I was surprised to hear it was only $100/hr, but some people say it might go up to $1000/hr, and one person was making "high six figures". So I don't know. Maybe it's worth getting into if you have some good connections.
  - freetanga 8y ago
    I hire about 150 COBOL guys and gals (as full time employees) and they are making in average 100k€ (European Bank) incl. 1 month holiday. Big brand contractors cost us around the same. DBAs, Sys Admins, operators, a bit more. Having 30y experience myself, from mobile and Java to Mainframe Assembler, I find the older guys - both on mobile (few) and COBOL (most) to be much more focus on engineering a system that lasts whatever you throw at them, while (most, not all) young coders are about speed and hashing something together that works (but needs overhaul after 3-4 years). Just my own experience, not saying is the only perspective.
    - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
      > I find the older guys - both on mobile (few) and COBOL (most) to be much more focus on engineering a system that lasts whatever you throw at them, while (most, not all) young coders are about speed and hashing something together that works (but needs overhaul after 3-4 years). I've noticed that tendency in younger developers too and it's utterly infuriating. Do you do anything to discourage this and, if so, what?
      - eropple 8y ago
        Not the person to whom you replied, but: mentorship. Code review. Talk about means, not just ends. I was fortunate to be a young developer with a desire to write things that could last, so I skipped a few steps and found myself doing the mentoring perhaps sooner than most, but instilling the notion that this thing needs to continue to function, and rejecting work that isn't in service of that goal, is doable.

marvin 8y ago

You wouldn't choose a top-tier React & AWS dev if your veteran Cobol dev had just died of old age and your business-critical Cobol & SAP monstrosity needs urgent changes to handle this years's tax compliance updates. In that situation, you'll pay the $20000/week or whatever oaiey quotes you. All right, so maybe you feel bad now about not listening to the engineering team and maintaining a continuous migration of your business-critical code to modern platforms over the last 30 years. But that's all in the past and your million-dollar business will be shuttered by the tax authorities in three months if you don't get this sorted out right now. Maybe we'll have a world one day where everyone knows the "obvious" fact of technology leadership that everything should be continuously migrated to the state of the art. But maybe we won't, and maybe this fact isn't obvious at all, or even correct. Who knows? In the meantime, people with skills that have an extreme demand/supply factor can command the highest rates, even if they won't be hired at tomorrow's startup. That's not to say it's a bad idea to learn current skills (for diversification), and definitely say no to working with legacy tech for small money, but that's really an orthogonal point to the one oaiey was making.

nathan_f77 8y ago
> In that situation, you'll pay the $20000/week or whatever oaiey quotes you. I looked into this recently, because I wanted to see if it would be worth learning COBOL to help maintain old banking systems. Unfortunately the pay is nowhere near $20000 / week, and experienced COBOL programmers typically make around $100 per hour, or $70k per year at a full-time job. Right now you can make much more money with modern web and mobile development. Here's some previous discussion about COBOL rates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14083214 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14083214 I was surprised to hear it was only $100/hr, but some people say it might go up to $1000/hr, and one person was making "high six figures". So I don't know. Maybe it's worth getting into if you have some good connections.
- freetanga 8y ago
  I hire about 150 COBOL guys and gals (as full time employees) and they are making in average 100k€ (European Bank) incl. 1 month holiday. Big brand contractors cost us around the same. DBAs, Sys Admins, operators, a bit more. Having 30y experience myself, from mobile and Java to Mainframe Assembler, I find the older guys - both on mobile (few) and COBOL (most) to be much more focus on engineering a system that lasts whatever you throw at them, while (most, not all) young coders are about speed and hashing something together that works (but needs overhaul after 3-4 years). Just my own experience, not saying is the only perspective.
  - ThrowawayR2 8y ago
    > I find the older guys - both on mobile (few) and COBOL (most) to be much more focus on engineering a system that lasts whatever you throw at them, while (most, not all) young coders are about speed and hashing something together that works (but needs overhaul after 3-4 years). I've noticed that tendency in younger developers too and it's utterly infuriating. Do you do anything to discourage this and, if so, what?
    - eropple 8y ago
      Not the person to whom you replied, but: mentorship. Code review. Talk about means, not just ends. I was fortunate to be a young developer with a desire to write things that could last, so I skipped a few steps and found myself doing the mentoring perhaps sooner than most, but instilling the notion that this thing needs to continue to function, and rejecting work that isn't in service of that goal, is doable.