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To attempt to answer the second - I’ve heard the often-repeated “COBOL pays great!” statement isn’t actually true. From what I recall (no personal experience),

by rtev 4y ago

To attempt to answer the second - I’ve heard the often-repeated “COBOL pays great!” statement isn’t actually true. From what I recall (no personal experience), the pay is quite a bit less than big tech, with the downside of an antiquated language on the resume and nightmare codebases to deal with. Doesn’t sound like a good career move.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
Don't "antiquated language" and "nightmare codebases" apply to the big tech too though? I mean I'm sure some of their code is modern but a lot was built 20 years ago by now (think PHP at FB, C++ at Google, Java sprinkled everywhere).
- manuelabeledo 4y ago
  20 years old is "old", now?
  - Invictus0 4y ago
    Yes. 2002 predates myspace.
    - manuelabeledo 4y ago
      It makes no sense that a programming language age would be judged in terms of other contemporary products.
tablespoon 4y ago
> To attempt to answer the second - I’ve heard the often-repeated “COBOL pays great!” statement isn’t actually true. > From what I recall (no personal experience), the pay is quite a bit less than big tech, with the downside of an antiquated language on the resume and nightmare codebases to deal with. Doesn’t sound like a good career move. FAANG salaries are kind of ridiculous, so using them as a base for a comparison is probably not going to lead to much insight.
- rtev 4y ago
  Still, the common advice seems to be to learn COBOL for big salaries. In reality, it’s nowhere near what’s defined as “big salary” in software engineering, more like “totally average”.
OGWhales 4y ago
I work for a company that uses COBOL still and have talked with many people that work in other mainframe shops. You are correct that the pay being great is generally not true. The two exceptions are people with decades of experience that have the advantage of understanding the business logic they helped build during their time and the truly exceptional people out there that work as contractors for desperate companies unable to find people that can understand their systems. So there is money in COBOL, but I don't think it's particularly accessible to anyone new. Maybe as more veterans retire, salary rates for new devs will go up. There is an interesting trade off between paying more to attract talent and taking the risk of migrating off a mainframe. COBOL is easy to teach, the hard part is maintaining the business logic that was built up over decades. Our parent company recently shut down their mainframe, but it took them nearly 7 years to complete that process. Many other companies have failed and wasted years and millions of dollars trying to migrate. It is massive challenge.

by rtev 4y ago

Cthulhu_ 4y ago

Don't "antiquated language" and "nightmare codebases" apply to the big tech too though? I mean I'm sure some of their code is modern but a lot was built 20 years ago by now (think PHP at FB, C++ at Google, Java sprinkled everywhere).

manuelabeledo 4y ago
20 years old is "old", now?
- Invictus0 4y ago
  Yes. 2002 predates myspace.
  - manuelabeledo 4y ago
    It makes no sense that a programming language age would be judged in terms of other contemporary products.

tablespoon 4y ago

> To attempt to answer the second - I’ve heard the often-repeated “COBOL pays great!” statement isn’t actually true. > From what I recall (no personal experience), the pay is quite a bit less than big tech, with the downside of an antiquated language on the resume and nightmare codebases to deal with. Doesn’t sound like a good career move. FAANG salaries are kind of ridiculous, so using them as a base for a comparison is probably not going to lead to much insight.

rtev 4y ago
Still, the common advice seems to be to learn COBOL for big salaries. In reality, it’s nowhere near what’s defined as “big salary” in software engineering, more like “totally average”.

OGWhales 4y ago

I work for a company that uses COBOL still and have talked with many people that work in other mainframe shops. You are correct that the pay being great is generally not true. The two exceptions are people with decades of experience that have the advantage of understanding the business logic they helped build during their time and the truly exceptional people out there that work as contractors for desperate companies unable to find people that can understand their systems. So there is money in COBOL, but I don't think it's particularly accessible to anyone new. Maybe as more veterans retire, salary rates for new devs will go up. There is an interesting trade off between paying more to attract talent and taking the risk of migrating off a mainframe. COBOL is easy to teach, the hard part is maintaining the business logic that was built up over decades. Our parent company recently shut down their mainframe, but it took them nearly 7 years to complete that process. Many other companies have failed and wasted years and millions of dollars trying to migrate. It is massive challenge.