5 ms·

They said that for the mainframe and mini people at the end of the 90s and yet all the people who I know who worked in those areas are still employed, still mak

They said that for the mainframe and mini people at the end of the 90s and yet all the people who I know who worked in those areas are still employed, still making good money, and will still be doing so for the foreseeable future. Technology lasts a surprisingly long time and not everybody needs to keep jumping on the new hotness.

icebraining 12y ago
Yeap. The highest earning programmer I know is still writing COBOL for the same employer, as he has for the last thirty years. Staying still can be fine, if you know what do bet on. A fast moving target like HTML is just not a good bet. Get on board of a tech entrenched in the enterprise world and you can probably make a good living for many years to come.
Luyt 12y ago
I visited a workshop a few weeks ago, and also attending was a COBOL programmer (in his 50s) who still was active on that platform. I wonder whether it could be lucrative to learn COBOL (and CICS!) and work on those legacy systems that are still out there. "While CICS has its highest profile among financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies, over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are reported to run CICS along with many government entities." - Wikipedia
- kxo 12y ago
  There are COBOL devs who actually realize what they are worth and billing (banks) 200-300k accordingly.
- precisioncoder 12y ago
  I have a friend who's fairly young (early 30's) who heard about an opening in COBOL that a company couldn't fill, taught himself COBOL just to fill that position and ended up running his department and getting headhunted from others. Sometimes learning obsolete technologies can be a great career builder. Just make sure there's a shortage in your area.
- cjeane 12y ago
  The COBOL classes at my university were basically sponsored by a large local bank, and they would give a job offer to anyone the professor recommended.
raverbashing 12y ago
It might pay the bills, but you'll work on exactly ZERO new developments. You won't be able to work with Web/Embedded/Mobile. Your developments will probably be "new report at bank" or "fixing new bugs" So, unless you learn other stuff, it might get you the money but it's probably something veery boring (even more boring than your corporate CRUD app)
- Xylakant 12y ago
  Most jobs in Web and Mobile are fairly boring. People program Wordpress Templates for a living. Fix bugs on rails installations. Run 400 Servers that run a shop. The next app that displays data from an API. Actually, very few jobs are "exciting" as in "really new development or research that was never done before".
  - kyllo 12y ago
    Boring is where the money is, because no one will do the boring work for free.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      I'd pick fairly boring work with a nice team over interesting work with assholes every single time. Some people also prefer boring as in "uneventful" since they have kids, family, other obligations and value having a 9-5 job over interesting. There's a lot of reasons to pick boring. I can have exciting hobbies after work.
      - kyllo 12y ago
        Agreed. I think we tend to underestimate how highly people value interesting work. If you want to do work that most people would rate as interesting, you're going to pay a very high "passion tax" for the privilege. People will put up with more competition for fewer openings, drastically lower salaries, longer hours, worse work environments, and meaner coworkers, in order to do work they feel "passionate" about. I have interesting hobbies and am happy to do boring work in exchange for the better pay and working conditions and more free time to spend on my hobbies and family.
kasey_junk 12y ago
I think maybe you are experiencing survivor bias? Because I know tons of mainframe and mini guys who either a) retired b) left technology or c) retrained. The 2002-2004 years were bad for lots of people, but the mainframe guys were brutalized (at least in the industries/companies I was working in). Devs who a few years earlier were commanding 400-600 an hour with all the work they wanted, could not find operator jobs. Now I assume the folks that made it through that either through persaverance, luck or skill have a pretty good niche gig. But lots and lots of people had trouble.
ovulator 12y ago
My mother is a mainframe person. She was back in the 80's, she was in the 90's, she was in the 00's and she is in the 10's. The difference is as the supply of mainframe people goes down, her pay goes up.

icebraining 12y ago

Yeap. The highest earning programmer I know is still writing COBOL for the same employer, as he has for the last thirty years. Staying still can be fine, if you know what do bet on. A fast moving target like HTML is just not a good bet. Get on board of a tech entrenched in the enterprise world and you can probably make a good living for many years to come.

Luyt 12y ago

I visited a workshop a few weeks ago, and also attending was a COBOL programmer (in his 50s) who still was active on that platform. I wonder whether it could be lucrative to learn COBOL (and CICS!) and work on those legacy systems that are still out there. "While CICS has its highest profile among financial institutions such as banks and insurance companies, over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies are reported to run CICS along with many government entities." - Wikipedia

kxo 12y ago
There are COBOL devs who actually realize what they are worth and billing (banks) 200-300k accordingly.
precisioncoder 12y ago
I have a friend who's fairly young (early 30's) who heard about an opening in COBOL that a company couldn't fill, taught himself COBOL just to fill that position and ended up running his department and getting headhunted from others. Sometimes learning obsolete technologies can be a great career builder. Just make sure there's a shortage in your area.
cjeane 12y ago
The COBOL classes at my university were basically sponsored by a large local bank, and they would give a job offer to anyone the professor recommended.

raverbashing 12y ago

It might pay the bills, but you'll work on exactly ZERO new developments. You won't be able to work with Web/Embedded/Mobile. Your developments will probably be "new report at bank" or "fixing new bugs" So, unless you learn other stuff, it might get you the money but it's probably something veery boring (even more boring than your corporate CRUD app)

Xylakant 12y ago
Most jobs in Web and Mobile are fairly boring. People program Wordpress Templates for a living. Fix bugs on rails installations. Run 400 Servers that run a shop. The next app that displays data from an API. Actually, very few jobs are "exciting" as in "really new development or research that was never done before".
- kyllo 12y ago
  Boring is where the money is, because no one will do the boring work for free.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    I'd pick fairly boring work with a nice team over interesting work with assholes every single time. Some people also prefer boring as in "uneventful" since they have kids, family, other obligations and value having a 9-5 job over interesting. There's a lot of reasons to pick boring. I can have exciting hobbies after work.
    - kyllo 12y ago
      Agreed. I think we tend to underestimate how highly people value interesting work. If you want to do work that most people would rate as interesting, you're going to pay a very high "passion tax" for the privilege. People will put up with more competition for fewer openings, drastically lower salaries, longer hours, worse work environments, and meaner coworkers, in order to do work they feel "passionate" about. I have interesting hobbies and am happy to do boring work in exchange for the better pay and working conditions and more free time to spend on my hobbies and family.

kasey_junk 12y ago

I think maybe you are experiencing survivor bias? Because I know tons of mainframe and mini guys who either a) retired b) left technology or c) retrained. The 2002-2004 years were bad for lots of people, but the mainframe guys were brutalized (at least in the industries/companies I was working in). Devs who a few years earlier were commanding 400-600 an hour with all the work they wanted, could not find operator jobs. Now I assume the folks that made it through that either through persaverance, luck or skill have a pretty good niche gig. But lots and lots of people had trouble.

ovulator 12y ago

My mother is a mainframe person. She was back in the 80's, she was in the 90's, she was in the 00's and she is in the 10's. The difference is as the supply of mainframe people goes down, her pay goes up.