I have been deeply fascinated by COBOL ever since 1994. In 1994 I was looking at where to go to college, and the community college near the town I grew up had two "computer" associates programs. One was a program focused on personal computers, and one was a program focused on mainframes. The person I spoke to at the school told me, at the time, that as far as he could tell graduates of both programs got good jobs, but he never saw anyone cross from one to the other. Once the track was picked, the lives and careers diverged. He described the mainframe path as "for going deep into the guts of banks, insurance companies, government and big big companies." It was not a great pitch to give a 16 year old IMO.

I ended up going to neither and went to a traditional CS undergrad at a 4 year state school, and things have been fine ever since. However, on a regular basis, I think about the other life I would have had, if instead I had gotten an associate's in mainframe programming. What would I have done? Where would I have worked? Who even are those folks.

If today I found a COBOL bootcamp that reskilled developers for a career change into COBOL, i may even seriously consider it. An unexplored path that has always been in the back of my head, deep in the guts of the engines of industry.