The language isn't hard, getting new devs that stay 15+ years to learn the ins and outs of systems that large is.

We're making a push to get our cobol devs some kind of bonus foe sticking around because we can hire a ton of junior devs but after a few years only the ones nearing retirement are left.

Can you talk more on this, as an older developer most of the cobol jobs that I have seen end up being underpaid for this stage in my life.

What kind of 'ins and outs' are in this context ?

Focus on distressed stuff, that's where the money is in COBOL.

"Distressed stuff"?

Companies in a panic because some critical system broke / some critical system needs to be kept alive for a bit longer but all of the original people maintaining it have already left.

I’d love to see AI take on some of these 50 year old COBOL monstrosities, partly because it’s desperately needed but also because I have little faith that AI is anywhere near sophisticated enough to undo half a century of bad programming decisions without going sideways.

> undo half a century of bad programming decisions without going sideways.

I'd like to see AI manage to figure out 50 years of law and regulation changes and corner cases that have no documentation other than COBOL implementations.