Shortage of COBOL developers in insurance and banks

Post by jve » Wed, May 24, 2023, 2:45 PM UTC

Shakahs wrote: post #54

jve wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Millennial, I haven't ever seen/touched/used a mainframe. And I work in a modern Data Center. What are the pros/cons of mainframe? What makes them better than a rack housed with necessary hardware? Well, I can see cons - not so accessible as regular hardware. Impractical/impossible to have at house. So the learning curve for hobbyists/tinkerers/curious are missing first steps.

My simplified understanding is that mainframes take vertical OLTP scaling AND system redundancy to the absolute extreme. In any other computer your small number of general purpose CPUs have to handle all the business / application logic plus disk IO, network IO, cryptography, system housekeeping, etc. On a mainframe all those other things are offloaded to specialized coprocessors and the actual business logic gets ne…

Post by GoblinSlayer » Wed, May 24, 2023, 4:09 PM UTC

century19 wrote: post #36

nubinetwork wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't blame them, some places would rather maintain their 1960s status quo than port to modern languages. It makes no sense but management is rather resistant to change.

Oh that's not the case here, management would love to get off these systems. They see the risks with the age profile of developers, staffing issues, and general ageing tech problems. Re-writing these systems in another language is almost not an option. They have been written over decades with countless undocumented projects. They are core systems that work the way the business wants (or is built around, for better or…

Post by lemerou » Wed, May 24, 2023, 5:49 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #44

kqr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, really? I briefly looked at Cobol job ads in Sweden (just for fun to see what's out there -- not actually looking for a Cobol job right now) recently and they were all looking for people with multiple years of production Cobol maintenance. I must have missed something obvious.

https://sebgroup.com/sv/karriar/vem-ar-du/nyexaminerade-och-... Only formal requirement to apply is some professional development experience or a degree in something programming related.

Post by exabrial » Wed, May 24, 2023, 11:31 PM UTC

Nextgrid wrote: post #55

exabrial wrote: post #26

I would do it for them for the right price; about 5x what I currently make writing Java/Js/C on Linux. These sense like an extreme amount, but the problem is I’m pigeon holing myself into a single tech and my pathway to career advancement is finding other big banks that are hurting… which again I’m willing to do, but the risk/reward has to be there. Given what some of these mangers make at these banks, coughing up th…

> Given what some of these mangers make at these banks, coughing up that salary isn’t unreasonable. From the bank's perspective, it is unreasonable. Legacy banks still don't understand/accept that IT is the foundation of their business. Maybe a century ago it was possible to run a bank on paper records, typewriters and abacuses (abacii?) but those days are long gone. Yet, the banks still consider IT as a nuisance and…

Post by rbanffy » Thu, May 25, 2023, 8:12 PM UTC

intrasight wrote: post #6

jemmyw wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably the money isn't good for a reason, i.e. there are actually enough people to get them by.

I doubt it. As always, "shortage" is just a euphemism for "we don't want to pay market rate". It's a small enough niche that buyers of services can conspire.