Why Maintaining Old Code Pays More Than Writing New Code

A friend of mine spent three years at a bank. Not building the new mobile app everyone was excited about. Maintaining the COBOL batch-processing system that actually moved money. He was, by his own admission, bored out of his mind. He was also paid more than almost anyone on the new-features team, had job security that bordered on absurd, and got called personally by a VP every time anything…