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from the portents-of-future-ecma-script dept.
The Enterprises Project writes about how the demand for several very specific, established skills, including COBOL, is increasing as boomers retire, taking their knowledge with them. Part of the skill gap between the old and the new is familiarity with the work flow and business processes.
Baby Boomers are retiring and taking with them the skills to run legacy technologies upon which organizations still (amazingly) rely – from AS/400 wrangling to COBOL development. That leaves many CIOs in a tight spot, trying to fill roles that not only require specialized knowledge no longer being taught but that most IT professionals agree also have limited long-term prospects. "Specific skill sets associated with mainframes, DB2 and Oracle, for example, are complex and require years of training, and can be challenging to find in young talent," says Graig Paglieri, president of Randstad Technologies.
Apparently, COBOL is still in use in 9 percent of businesses, mainly in finance and government. And so the demand for COBOL is gradually growing. If one has interest to pick up that plus one or more of the other legacy technologies, on top of something newer and trendier, there should be a possibility to clean up before the last of these jobs moves to India.
Earlier on SN:
Jean Sammet, Co-Designer of a Pioneering Computer Language, Dies at 89 (2017)
Banks Should Let Ancient Programming Language COBOL Die (2017)
Honesty in Employment Ads (2016)
3 Open Source Projects for Modern COBOL Development
(2015)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:16PM (3 children)
Don't fall for this line if you are starting your career.
If they were honest, they would say new blood needed in dying industry as old staff dies off.
(Score: 1) by Scottingham on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:19PM (2 children)
There's merit to that, but what if somebody is starting out coding in their late 40s?
It seems like it'd be a way to let ageism work in their favor. When you're interviewing people to help with your legacy COBOL codebase, would you feel better with the 22 year old or 48 year old?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 04 2018, @04:18PM
The one who understands COBOL and the particular business best?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 04 2018, @04:56PM
Could work in your favor. People tend to be most confortable around others like themselves.
But a shrewd manager might be looking to hire younger (22-30) to balance out the old fogey employee base.
Most likely, they will hire if they have a burning need. I would say go for it if it interests you, but be aware that it will be career limiting to stay there any length of time.