How is the mainframe job market in the USA?
Asked by LovesLife
I've been hearing a lot regarding dying COBOL programing language. Being a fresh graduate getting recruited as a COBOL programmer i am eager to know about this? Is there any future for this profile?

Best Answer:
Most large companies still run their Back Office (mainly Accounting) applications in COBOL. Baby Boomers are retiring, and there's a need for fresh blood to support these applications. You will not be writing new apps from the ground up, you will be patching existing apps as the need arises. When I left college in the 70s, I went to the chairman of the Comp Sci department to ask what he thought of a mainframe job I was being offered. He predicted death. 40 years later, there still is something like 500 billion lines of COBOL supporting business infrastructure. In your case, I would stay away. It's not a very sexy line of work, you will not be learning the hot new things that are around. You will not find many young folk around you. I would expect that during your lifetime, most of the existing COBOL applications will be retired, one by one. But, if you need the money, there's still a good 20-30 years left in COBOL programming, it's an easy language to learn, and it's not mired in the object-oriented molasses of today.

On the one hand, nobody is writing any new COBOL applications. On the other, there are still a lot of them running and most of the programmers are near retirement. You should have opportunities, but you'll be restricted to a fairly small number of large organizations that have big mainframe operations. I don't think there's any reason to stay away from COBOL if it interests you, but I wouldn't want to do it exclusively--make sure you're current on some newer technologies as well.
Answered by Richard H