sahhhm

a lawyers public reputation is built through the day-to-day work. Not a programmers can put their body of work on public display

Have worked with COBOL on a mainframe for a large bank in NYC for the past four years. A very stable and critical application, it's nice to work with a group of established and proven people who value a work life balance. A bit bummed that a lot of the mainframe is locked down or controlled by the mainframe systems folks run by the global tech team. Overall a positive experience with all the business domain exposure, but finding it increasingly hard to remain relevant and move to new opportunities...

It seems fairly common to the point that 401k vesting horizons are something that can be expected. Filtering on "Vesting" against the Bloomberg data, 2 of the top 10 have similar conditions (with MasterCard requiring 4 years instead of 3, though their match is considerably better than Amazon's). Outside of the top 10 there is still a healthy representation of companies that do not immediately vest.

Well-funded 401k matching plans that vest immediately certainly help with mobility, for those who care to stick around for the match!

NYC, living single, making a bit less than the "West Coast" salary specified. All percentages approximate, but pretty close.

Breaking down the original amount provided by the company:

28.5% - Tax

3.5% - Pre-tax contributions for healthcare and transportation

17% - 401k Savings

2.79% - ESSP Savings

3.67% - Direct Savings

23% - Rent

21% - monthly expenses

After taking out taxes and pre-tax deductions (the money I have more control over):

17% - 401k Savings

5.5% - ESSP Savings

7% - Direct Savings

44% - Rent (it could be as low as ~33% if 401k contributions are eliminated)

27% - monthly expenses

Fair enough. My intention was to avoid attacking the original quotation while still maintaining the actual translation.

Not to be pedantic, but the Rabassa translation reads: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."

Instead of skipping coffee, buy a nice travel mug (that keeps your coffee hot) and brew from home before heading out. My travel mug keeps coffee made at 7.45 warm until around 9 before becoming undrinkable. In addition, you'll be able to explore more expensive brands/roasts at low costs and find some new favorites!

The true talent problem I see is maybe 20% solved by offshore talent. I say that because with most of these monster systems, it seems the talent comes in understanding the system yes, but more importantly the business that the system is designed for (around...)

There are offshore people on mainframes in the banking industry, but the problem faced is more in explaining why or how to do something business-wise. Once some of the older ranks , and thus their experience/knowledge, retire there will be less people who understand why the system does what it does, with hoards of offshore who just pump code leading to a crippling process to which I imagine will hinder any non-trivial change.

So this is a problem I've been dealing with. Been working out of school for almost two years at a big financial firm, working on Mainframes. I would say I'm relatively lucky in terms of mainframe horror stories you hear, in terms of new software being developed, but yes, ultimately for every "unit" of new work I do, I would reckon there's two units of maintenance.

The one main benefit I've seen working on my team, however, is the proximity to some of our business users and knowledge gained about the business that we conduct. I value that more than some of my colleagues working on an internal toolbar, even though they may be using a more modern technology.

I feel the difficulty that's quickly arising is knowing when to get out before the pigeonhole widens.