I am curious about this as well. If we take this "volunteer" word being used in these articles at face value, it means these states are asking for people to work on their systems for free… you've got to be frickin' kidding me. It's such a preposterous idea that I can only believe that it must have been an error or misinterpretation at some level which has entered into and lingered in the news zeitgeist like a fart in the shower and that these states actually do intend to remunerate their contractors at a fair rate. Why else would anyone accept these contracts? Are there really people who are both experienced COBOL devs and such huge fans of the bureaucracy of their states that they'll serve them for free? If there really is any overlap on that Venn diagram, it must be quite small - and shame on every single one of them for devaluing themselves.
They might mean 'volunteer' like people 'volunteer' for the army in the US. you get paid, and get the tools provided, etc., but you're not going to be forced out of your current life and conscripted in to COBOL work.
It's a bad word though, because it creates these confusions. However, they might be at a max of existing COBOL 'full timers'. Who would 'volunteer' to leave their current dev roles to jump in to the NJ COBOL life? Might mean moving to NJ as well...
The NJ site actually asks if you plan to seek compensation and that compensation would have to comply with state procurement laws. So don’t expect boku $$$ for these jobs. They want freebies. There’s no shortage of COBOL devs just a shortage of people willing to pay for them or pay market rates.
NY pays everybody who does any sort of IT or software dev work a starting salary of $56K at the moment. I expect NJ would be similar. You think that is too much for current employees and not enough for prospective COBOL programmers? Explain further if you please.
I, for one, am glad that there are people out there willing to sacrifice their time and experience for the greater good. This is one of those “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” moments in time that will testify to the character of us all.
