> There is little competition for this sort of job On both sides of the market. There's like 75 times as many javascript job listing as there are cobol ones o

> There is little competition for this sort of job On both sides of the market. There's like 75 times as many javascript job listing as there are cobol ones on popular job boards. You can get all of those things without leaning on a tech stack with such a small job pool. Most development jobs, especially at large companies, are maintenance-oriented development. Java is the ecosystem to learn if the three points you listed are important to someone. There are gobs of Java jobs out there, many are battle-tested systems built long ago running in established companies. Another benefit is that there's an actual job market for Java developers, which should be a huge consideration for everyone, because having a stable job isn't the same as having a stable job feel good going to every day.