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I write COBOL I work 24hrs/week I make $15k/week I also can’t center a div on a web page or do much of anything other then what I do. Specialization IMO is ke

by ld_bic 4y ago

I write COBOL I work 24hrs/week I make $15k/week I also can’t center a div on a web page or do much of anything other then what I do. Specialization IMO is key to highest job satisfaction and highest salary in this industry

greatpostman 4y ago
Interesting, always thought high paying cobol jobs were a myth
- ld_bic 4y ago
  IMO the only way in this industry (without having your own company or something like that) to high-paying gigs is to become more valuable to a company than company is to you. and that you can accomplish only through DEEP specialization
  - varjag 4y ago
    The downside to this of course is the breadth of your next job search (should it come to that) suffers.
    - ld_bic 4y ago
      This on the surface sounds solid but I persobally think most job searches are narrow unless you are doing “career changing” moves. How many good UI/UX colleagues do you have that are good at anything else? How many compiler developers can center a div on the page? I think this “I know a lot of things” is just something we say - terms like “full stack” developer etc… I mostly develop on a computer which isn’t connected to the internet (so no Google, Stackoverflow etc…) and I often think how miniscule fraction of “full stack” developers could perform even the most menial task in any of these “stacks” they apparently know
    - chmod775 4y ago
      If you make in a month what others do in a year, you can retire after 6-8 years and never worry about having to find another job if you play your cards right. Accounting for taxes and moderate expenses, at the end you should be sitting on close to 2m USD. That's more money than the vast majority of people make in their lifetime (after taxes). If you don't plan to live to a hundred you'll be fine even if you don't do any higher-risky investing, slowly spending it.
      - varjag 4y ago
        Expecting a 12x of median industry rate via specialization is not realistic. I'm sure such outliers exist and you possibly know both of them but this is not an actionable advice.
unsupp0rted 4y ago
Interesting- this is contrary to what many people responded when I AskHN'd recently: > Ask HN: How do I learn real-world COBOL? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31906829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31906829 How does one learn to do what you do (write COBOL in the real world to make a great living)?
- bitwize 4y ago
  Those people wrote that because they're making $15k/week and don't want to tank their market value.

by ld_bic 4y ago

greatpostman 4y ago

Interesting, always thought high paying cobol jobs were a myth

ld_bic 4y ago
IMO the only way in this industry (without having your own company or something like that) to high-paying gigs is to become more valuable to a company than company is to you. and that you can accomplish only through DEEP specialization
- varjag 4y ago
  The downside to this of course is the breadth of your next job search (should it come to that) suffers.
  - ld_bic 4y ago
    This on the surface sounds solid but I persobally think most job searches are narrow unless you are doing “career changing” moves. How many good UI/UX colleagues do you have that are good at anything else? How many compiler developers can center a div on the page? I think this “I know a lot of things” is just something we say - terms like “full stack” developer etc… I mostly develop on a computer which isn’t connected to the internet (so no Google, Stackoverflow etc…) and I often think how miniscule fraction of “full stack” developers could perform even the most menial task in any of these “stacks” they apparently know
  - chmod775 4y ago
    If you make in a month what others do in a year, you can retire after 6-8 years and never worry about having to find another job if you play your cards right. Accounting for taxes and moderate expenses, at the end you should be sitting on close to 2m USD. That's more money than the vast majority of people make in their lifetime (after taxes). If you don't plan to live to a hundred you'll be fine even if you don't do any higher-risky investing, slowly spending it.
    - varjag 4y ago
      Expecting a 12x of median industry rate via specialization is not realistic. I'm sure such outliers exist and you possibly know both of them but this is not an actionable advice.

unsupp0rted 4y ago

Interesting- this is contrary to what many people responded when I AskHN'd recently: > Ask HN: How do I learn real-world COBOL? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31906829 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31906829 How does one learn to do what you do (write COBOL in the real world to make a great living)?

bitwize 4y ago
Those people wrote that because they're making $15k/week and don't want to tank their market value.