Comment by chojeen

6 hours ago

I'm looking forward to having the same experience as COBOL engineers did after retirement: companies backing up the brinks truck to anyone with the skills to keep the lights on.

If you actually look at Cobol job listings, they pay like 50k and want a master's degree. The myth of them being paid really well is not true at all.

> backing up the brinks truck

now that's a phrase I have only heard in one other context: as an alleged quote from former Boston Celtics player Isaiah Thomas (who was really about 5'7 despite his official listed 5'9; yes, professional basketball player in NBA). This was around 2017 when he had just come off a career year and was soon due for a contract extension in the low 9 figures. He got injured and bounced around for a few years before eventually leaving the league, and never got that payday.

  • It’s commonly used in college sports where one school’s fan base argue for poaching a coach at another school. “Back up the Brinks truck” == throw money at him.

It's like I said in another article, I've spent my life in C# and JavaScript. I'm a low-level programmer now, did even have to learn C or assembly.

that would be nice, but unfortunately I think the supply vs demand situation is quite different this time

  • Yeah, every COBOL job paid pretty terrible relative to other types of work (like web dev).

    Sure there might be a dozen individuals making over $300k but most COBOL devs live in the deep south making less than $100k for their entire careers. Fine salary, but that line of work is severely limited and the salaries do not reflect how valuable that work is.