
Looking for COBOL or EDI work - lucyhankins
Hi, I&#x27;M a 60 year old COBOL&#x2F;CICS programmer.  I coded for about 23 years.  I also taught myself the EDI x12 language &amp; used it for the last 7 years of my career. I left the field in 2002. My question is this:  I worked a parttime bookkeeping job while my son was at home.  He started college in the fall 2017.  I would love to get back into the programming world &amp; am not sure where to begin.   I know it would be a short matter of time until I got the rust out, but I know I can still write code.   I welcome any suggestions.  I live in the Philadelphia area.
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PaulHoule
You might build on your EDI x12 experience. That protocol is not dominant but
B2B e-commerce (say your doctor and insurance co) is a huge field -- there are
many other protocols, but to attain the same ends they solve the same
problems, sometimes in different ways.

Philly has banking, insurance, business headquarters, pharma, etc. There
certainly are COBOL programmers your age in your town, your best bet could be
to find one and look at where they are employed.

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JPLeRouzic
Hi, I am 61, learned Cobol at college then forgot it. But I still think it is
an interesting language. Here is my take:

* First try to learn a bit about different flavors of Cobol and incompatibilities to be able to discuss with potential employers.

* Then the obvious thing is work as a freelancer, but I am not optimistic for a Cobol coder.

* Try to mine Linkedin for head of IT in large companies. I am sure there are lot of people that have worries about code bases that nobody understand anymore.

* Charge a lot more than a Java coder. It will impress people, they may even expect it.

Good luck!

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JPLeRouzic
Another point: I know by first hand that large companies would prefer dealing
with a small business than with a freelancer.

