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I work with a AS400 contractor, it is all he knows. This thing was released in 1986. He has a great work/life balance and contracts with multiple medium/large c

by avgDev 5y ago

I work with a AS400 contractor, it is all he knows. This thing was released in 1986. He has a great work/life balance and contracts with multiple medium/large companies. SO being the only mainframe programmer left can actually be in your favor, it often turns into short and high income tasks. Many companies are running systems which are 40 years old, large banks, costco, medium businesses and the list goes on. The cost of updating this stuff is insanely expensive and if it ain't broken why fix it.

cutthegrass2 5y ago
The global financial system largely runs on a tech stack of Cobol, CICS, DB2 on zOS.
peytoncasper 5y ago
While this is true, I think it's also fair to say that it's not easy to just become a contractor. It requires just as much growth as climbing the ladder. Learning how to manage your time, network, insurance, etc. In addition, you're competing for an ever shrinking pool of work which naturally limits the amount of work available and thus competitive participants. Also, I've worked with customers that have a ton of this "not broke software". The reality is that these systems present major bottlenecks in providing modern experiences around the data they manage. People spend a lot of time working around the limitations of these systems under the guise that its too expensive to replace.
mywittyname 5y ago
Sometimes people like this will get caught in a trap where they can't find other employment elsewhere without starting over. So their wages and skill stagnate (a lot of our upskilling comes from working on teams that force us to grow). So they've stayed at the same company since 1995 and their nice $50k salary has grown to maybe $85k, which, while not shabby in absolute terms, is on par with fresh graduates in most of the USA. Old tech is a double-edged sword. Like any other obscure tech, there's less competition, but for fewer overall jobs.
bluGill 5y ago
Maybe. I know mainframe programmers out of work because they couldn't adapt. I know programmers who made a lifetime of supporting obsolete products after everyone else forgot about them. There is a difference in attitude even though from the outside they look the same, the prospects are very different.

by avgDev 5y ago

cutthegrass2 5y ago

The global financial system largely runs on a tech stack of Cobol, CICS, DB2 on zOS.

peytoncasper 5y ago

While this is true, I think it's also fair to say that it's not easy to just become a contractor. It requires just as much growth as climbing the ladder. Learning how to manage your time, network, insurance, etc. In addition, you're competing for an ever shrinking pool of work which naturally limits the amount of work available and thus competitive participants. Also, I've worked with customers that have a ton of this "not broke software". The reality is that these systems present major bottlenecks in providing modern experiences around the data they manage. People spend a lot of time working around the limitations of these systems under the guise that its too expensive to replace.

mywittyname 5y ago

Sometimes people like this will get caught in a trap where they can't find other employment elsewhere without starting over. So their wages and skill stagnate (a lot of our upskilling comes from working on teams that force us to grow). So they've stayed at the same company since 1995 and their nice $50k salary has grown to maybe $85k, which, while not shabby in absolute terms, is on par with fresh graduates in most of the USA. Old tech is a double-edged sword. Like any other obscure tech, there's less competition, but for fewer overall jobs.

bluGill 5y ago

Maybe. I know mainframe programmers out of work because they couldn't adapt. I know programmers who made a lifetime of supporting obsolete products after everyone else forgot about them. There is a difference in attitude even though from the outside they look the same, the prospects are very different.