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Ask HN: Any active COBOL devs here? What are you working on?

234 points _false | 4 comments | 18 Jul 25 13:05 UTC | HN request time: 0.944s | source

COBOL legacy systems in finance and government are somewhat of a meme. However, I've never actually met a single person who's day job is to maintain one. I'd be curious to learn what systems are you working on?
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mjl- ◴[18 Jul 25 13:37 UTC] No.44604512[source]▶
What I'm wondering: Are the salaries high? Not just because you've been employed at the job for a long time with regular raises, but because it's hard to find developers.
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ecshafer ◴[18 Jul 25 13:43 UTC] No.44604569[source]▶
No the salaries aren't high. They are typically lower than other software engineer salaries. There are a large number of contractors from Indian consulting companies with "experience in cobol" to make run of the mill cobol cheap enough.

The very high salaries you hear about sometimes are always for VERY specific mainframes that are extremely old with a lot of quirks, and are usually being paid to consultants.

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romanovcode ◴[18 Jul 25 14:00 UTC] No.44604727[source]▶
> There are a large number of contractors from Indian consulting companies with "experience in cobol" to make run of the mill cobol cheap enough.

Seeing the horrible performance from Indian offshore firms with modern languages I cannot imagine the mess they make with legacy languages like Cobol. Or is it the other way around?

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1. devwastaken ◴[18 Jul 25 14:06 UTC] No.44604787[source]▶
Corps operate despite inefficiency not because of efficiency. LLC protection and market control are everything.
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2. FredPret ◴[18 Jul 25 14:55 UTC] No.44605338[source]▶
But the code still has to work. LLC's and other corporate structures only protect the owners if the company goes bankrupt, which it will if its systems stop working.

Ditto with market control, it's not some permanent crown you achieve. Companies have to keep performing to keep their market share.

E.g., if you opened an account at a major bank, and your transactions started failing, would you keep banking there?

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3. ch_123 ◴[18 Jul 25 15:29 UTC] No.44605806[source]▶
> E.g., if you opened an account at a major bank, and your transactions started failing, would you keep banking there?

A lot of people who land in that situation do continue banking there since they are either tied into that bank through loans/debt, or lack the time/energy to move elsewhere.

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4. FredPret ◴[18 Jul 25 16:33 UTC] No.44606678{3}[source]▶
This situation would lead to immediate and extremely severe legal and commercial consequences for the bank, even if it's JP Morgan.

The argument that a market leader can screw up because it "owns" the market is not correct. Where's Xerox / IBM / Intel now?