this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 68 points 4 months ago (7 children)

COBOL programmers have some of the highest salaries of any other languages specialized programmers, but I don't know if that is due to rarity of COBOL programmers, the fact that those jobs are all government or financial institution employed, or because the average experience for them is 58 years?

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 36 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

The Stackoverflow developer survey debunks this myth, year after year. Not only do COBOL developers make about the middle of the pack, they sit at an average of 18 YOE which makes absolute bank in other stacks

https://survey.stackoverflow.co/2022/#section-salary-salary-and-experience-by-language

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Programming salaries are so inconsistent and these salaries by language become so meaningless.

My buddy who works in Google makes 600k but can also call himself a Typescript developer. I'm a dept lead but I've spent the past few months fixing business critical code, so depending on how the question is asked, id look like a overpriced jQuery/Angular/bash developer.

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is true, but the Stackoverflow datapoint was the only quantitative one I could think of. Anecdotally, I see senior COBOL developers making less than juniors but still thinking they're paid lots

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 months ago

Oh absolutely!

[–] eran_morad@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

Cheezus. Those salaries are lower than i expected to see.

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The idea that a job req could actually ask for "50+ years experience" in a given piece of computing technology just gives me goosebumps. Like someone did a really good job 50 years ago, or a really bad one. Either way, it's astonishing that any one thing could be in production use that long or longer.

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

When a piece of software does a very limited set of tasks that cannot be meaningfully improved, and when minor mistakes can equate to millions in cash or even lives lost or ruined, the name of the game is maintain, maintain, maintain. It ain't broke, leave it the hell alone, because updating, upgrading or porting your system will inevitably lead to some sort of mistake.

[–] dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

You're exactly right. And if the retrocomputing and retrogaming communities have taught us anything, it's that good emulation can make such systems last for a very long time.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 4 months ago

IBM are still making mainframes

I note they recently changed the way they charge large users , to the benefit of users with uneven compute loads (after buying an IBM mainframe you must also pay IBM for the amount of processing you do on it)

[–] EnderMB@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Contractors make a lot of money, but that would be separate to standard engineering salaries

I've known a few people that graduated about a decade ago and decided to work in really niche tech like COBOL, Salesforce/SOQL/SOSL, VB6, Sitecore, etc. Hell, one guy I met was a professional "ActionScript" programmer! Many in-store and company kiosks used Flash to program their interfaces, so he'd do basic maintenance, add features, and collect six figures for half a year of work and all the travel around Europe/Asia he wants.

[–] uis@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

or because the average experience for them is 58 years

Some have more?!

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Most have more. Like 3 guys just learned it as a prank last year for the first time in generations, which kind of threw off the curve. Every other COBOL programmer is technically old enough to retire, but they are contractually required to continue working until the heat death of the universe.

[–] Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee 4 points 4 months ago

Dang, you guys are single handedly bringing that average down huh?

[–] uis@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

but they are contractually required to continue working until the heat death of the universe.

This sounds worse than Russia. Please fix.

[–] burtonjoyce848@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

could be due to the rarity of COBOL programmers

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 4 months ago

The big users of COBOL are the sort that don't pay their developers all that well. Government, banks, giant corporations. The sort of places that still have pensions for long service