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Unix timestamps aren't vulnerable to the Year 2038 Problem unless you deliberately make it so they are.

The problem with ISO 8601 is that it isn't as simple as it looks. A lot of implementations that claim to support ISO 8601 do not parse all the different formats allowed by the standard. There are all kinds of weird edge cases like specifying a date with a year and week number that are valid.

RFC3339 defines a subset that is only the sane tinestamp format most people probably think of when they think ISO8601. It's a good alternative, although a lot of the time UNIX timestamps are honestly the most convenient option for everyone.

Source: spent a bunch of time designing a public API and thinking about this.

"It's more readable and not vulnerable to the Year 2038 problem"

What makes you use signed 32-bit Integer for Unix timestamp in this age and day? I work with embedded systems and use Unix timestamp extensively, but never have I found any serious reason to use it as int32_t.