Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by lifestyleguru 903 days ago
People get overly excited by some "last man standing" success stories of a COBOL developer based in US of A. My only encounter with COBOL developer was a freshly graduated girl based in post Communist country, her earnings were something around 25k EUR annually. I pointed out that her career might be something of a dead end but she was more like "a job is a job". Oh, and they were using some dinosaur version control as well.
2 comments
rgblambda 903 days ago
>her earnings were something around 25k EUR annually.

That's a fairly good salary for a recent graduate in Eastern Europe.

Although I admit it does illustrate your point that some legacy tech stacks are quite easy to pick up.

link
ponector 903 days ago
I've seen a post on local job board in Poland, IBM was looking for junior cobol engineer. Any student with some java knowledge will fit, they said. I'm sure they will not pay anything more than 25k eur anually.

Also if there is some legacy cobol system, many managers are incentivised to gather a new team to write a replacement with some modern technology stack. Cobol is definitely a dead end for the career.

link
lifestyleguru 903 days ago
> legacy cobol system, many managers are incentivised to gather a new team to write a replacement with some modern technology stack.

Absolutely not in outsourcing centers like this. You're not supposed to show any initiative or god forbid - design anything. You grunt the COBOL until budget for the project is zero.

link