A 65-year-old programming language called COBOL still quietly processes over $3 trillion in banking transactions every single day — and because the original engineers are rapidly retiring, banks are scrambling to pay younger developers fortunes just to keep the ancient infrastructure from breaking

A 65-year-old programming language called COBOL still quietly processes over $3 trillion in banking transactions every single day — and because the original engineers are rapidly retiring, banks are scrambling to pay younger developers fortunes just to keep the ancient infrastructure from breaking

In April 2020, in the middle of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of New Jersey’s unemployment system collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of newly-unemployed residents were trying to file claims. The system, built in the 1970s and never fully replaced, could not handle the load. Applications were dropping. Payments were stalling. The state’s emergency response was overwhelmed. Governor Phil Murphy went on television and did somethi…