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Everytime I see mainframes/COBOL mentioned, there's always anecdotes on how constantly short-supply COBOl programmers are[0] and that a surefire way to get a jo

Everytime I see mainframes/COBOL mentioned, there's always anecdotes on how constantly short-supply COBOl programmers are[0] and that a surefire way to get a job is to learn about COBOL and mainframes. I'm always curious - are there any people here who have deliberately gone into a career with mainframes for salary/job security reasons? How has it worked out? [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/new-jersey-seeks-cobol-programmers-to-fix-unemployment-system.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/new-jersey-seeks-cobol-progr...

throwaway1492 6y ago
I did, my first job out of college was mainframe cobol at a bank in 2002. It was a huge mistake. The mainframe apps were a cost center the company sought to minimize. Salaries were low, raises were zero to 3%, no bonuses. It was a dead end job. I recall sitting in a group meeting when the VP announced the offshoring initiative. The plan was to replace attrition with offshore developers, max 10%. A few quarters later same VP told the same group the same plan, only this time the target had risen to 20%. Ding ding! That’s when I got out. When it came to switching jobs I had zero experience in current tech and had to take an entry level position and a pay cut. A few years later that same company had massive layoffs and all development outsourced by 2008 or so. So yeah whenever you hear about opportunities in mainframe cobol don’t believe it. I’ve got 2,000 former cobol developers from that company alone who will attest that its farce. What puzzles me is who’s behind this idea and what’s their goal in promoting it?
- setpatchaddress 6y ago
  IBM, maybe? I'm surprised to read these recent anecdotes (going back to that New Jersey unemployment COVID programmer shortage) from various people that COBOL jobs are in high demand yet shockingly underpaid. That would seem to imply markets don't actually work the way we've been told.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    No, this is the way a market normally works. You have a supply curve, and a demand curve. As you go lower in price, the demand curve rises, and the supply curve declines. So you have low price, high demand, and low supply. This is completely normal when the price is too low. The difference in this case is that the press is showing sympathy to those who won't pay the price and then complain about the missing supply. That doesn't happen in most markets. Why is the press listening? Because the people complaining are people that the press normally listens to - banks and big, big businesses. It seems that many such businesses would rather complain, publicly, than pay a market-clearing rate. Well, I don't have a lot of sympathy, to be honest...
    - sgerenser 6y ago
      Banks and big businesses? Whenever I read articles about COBOL programmers needed, it’s always in regards to government positions. Which better explains why the pay is low, especially compared to big tech.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    High demand but the pay is at the Government pay scale. The other way of reading the situation is: There's nobody interested in working in COBOL at the suggested rates.
- obsequiosity 6y ago
  If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing nowadays?
- cat199 6y ago
  > The mainframe apps were a cost center the company sought to minimize. a bit off topic, but this is a huge thing that I at least didn't pick up on across jobs for many years - for accounting reasons, many firms will always see what your team is doing as an 'expense' to be 'minimized', no matter what you do, and in many cases, there is nothing you, or your manager, or even your managers manager can do to change this, since it is often decided at the highest levels of the firm based on broad-stroke accounting policies that have a direct impact to how the firms entire books (and therefore revenue/profit/etc) are calculated. IT/tech related? goes in a cost center. What's a cost center? an optional expense which can and should be minimized, with manager compensation often tied to how effectively costs are controlled. If anyone working in tech is not aware of the various accounting models used in business, it is well worth your time to get familiar with the basics - assignment of 'cost center' to technology groups in firms that use cost/revenue center models has a huge impact on how teams are likely run, decisions are made, and potential for career advancement for employees in those groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_centre_(business) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_centre_(business) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_center this is not the only costing model (job costing, activity based costing, etc) , but one in my view that is often hugely detrimental to technology teams in non-tech companies unfortunate enough to find themselves pre-categorised as a 'cost center'.
  - JohnL4 6y ago
    We've had some examples of cost-center-based thinking leading to disasters, SolarWinds and Boeing being two recent ones I can think of. I'm sure there are others. I wonder if b-school/management types put serious thought into managing complexity they don't understand. It's a serious question; nobody can understand everything and yet you have to make decisions.
    - cat199 6y ago
      > I wonder if b-school/management types put serious thought into managing complexity they don't understand. Think this is highly dependent on the school/student; In my experience (data point size=1), MBA teaching hasn't really caught up to the fact that basically everything is technology these days, so it shouldn't be treated as something 'separate' to the 'real' business, which it often still is - i'd wager that the resulting compartmentalization in thinking around how to manage tech is the main driver behind allowing poor systems to capture IT value from the financial perspective...
phendrenad2 6y ago
I applied for a few, most don't want you unless you have 63 years of COBOL experience already.

throwaway1492 6y ago

I did, my first job out of college was mainframe cobol at a bank in 2002. It was a huge mistake. The mainframe apps were a cost center the company sought to minimize. Salaries were low, raises were zero to 3%, no bonuses. It was a dead end job. I recall sitting in a group meeting when the VP announced the offshoring initiative. The plan was to replace attrition with offshore developers, max 10%. A few quarters later same VP told the same group the same plan, only this time the target had risen to 20%. Ding ding! That’s when I got out. When it came to switching jobs I had zero experience in current tech and had to take an entry level position and a pay cut. A few years later that same company had massive layoffs and all development outsourced by 2008 or so. So yeah whenever you hear about opportunities in mainframe cobol don’t believe it. I’ve got 2,000 former cobol developers from that company alone who will attest that its farce. What puzzles me is who’s behind this idea and what’s their goal in promoting it?

setpatchaddress 6y ago
IBM, maybe? I'm surprised to read these recent anecdotes (going back to that New Jersey unemployment COVID programmer shortage) from various people that COBOL jobs are in high demand yet shockingly underpaid. That would seem to imply markets don't actually work the way we've been told.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  No, this is the way a market normally works. You have a supply curve, and a demand curve. As you go lower in price, the demand curve rises, and the supply curve declines. So you have low price, high demand, and low supply. This is completely normal when the price is too low. The difference in this case is that the press is showing sympathy to those who won't pay the price and then complain about the missing supply. That doesn't happen in most markets. Why is the press listening? Because the people complaining are people that the press normally listens to - banks and big, big businesses. It seems that many such businesses would rather complain, publicly, than pay a market-clearing rate. Well, I don't have a lot of sympathy, to be honest...
  - sgerenser 6y ago
    Banks and big businesses? Whenever I read articles about COBOL programmers needed, it’s always in regards to government positions. Which better explains why the pay is low, especially compared to big tech.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  High demand but the pay is at the Government pay scale. The other way of reading the situation is: There's nobody interested in working in COBOL at the suggested rates.
obsequiosity 6y ago
If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing nowadays?
cat199 6y ago
> The mainframe apps were a cost center the company sought to minimize. a bit off topic, but this is a huge thing that I at least didn't pick up on across jobs for many years - for accounting reasons, many firms will always see what your team is doing as an 'expense' to be 'minimized', no matter what you do, and in many cases, there is nothing you, or your manager, or even your managers manager can do to change this, since it is often decided at the highest levels of the firm based on broad-stroke accounting policies that have a direct impact to how the firms entire books (and therefore revenue/profit/etc) are calculated. IT/tech related? goes in a cost center. What's a cost center? an optional expense which can and should be minimized, with manager compensation often tied to how effectively costs are controlled. If anyone working in tech is not aware of the various accounting models used in business, it is well worth your time to get familiar with the basics - assignment of 'cost center' to technology groups in firms that use cost/revenue center models has a huge impact on how teams are likely run, decisions are made, and potential for career advancement for employees in those groups. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_centre_(business) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_centre_(business) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_center this is not the only costing model (job costing, activity based costing, etc) , but one in my view that is often hugely detrimental to technology teams in non-tech companies unfortunate enough to find themselves pre-categorised as a 'cost center'.
- JohnL4 6y ago
  We've had some examples of cost-center-based thinking leading to disasters, SolarWinds and Boeing being two recent ones I can think of. I'm sure there are others. I wonder if b-school/management types put serious thought into managing complexity they don't understand. It's a serious question; nobody can understand everything and yet you have to make decisions.
  - cat199 6y ago
    > I wonder if b-school/management types put serious thought into managing complexity they don't understand. Think this is highly dependent on the school/student; In my experience (data point size=1), MBA teaching hasn't really caught up to the fact that basically everything is technology these days, so it shouldn't be treated as something 'separate' to the 'real' business, which it often still is - i'd wager that the resulting compartmentalization in thinking around how to manage tech is the main driver behind allowing poor systems to capture IT value from the financial perspective...

phendrenad2 6y ago

I applied for a few, most don't want you unless you have 63 years of COBOL experience already.