[quote]thanks, I politely declined and was candid about this. They were disappointed I could tell but surprisingly they understood. They even said that perhaps in the future we could get to work together, I’m thinking they didn’t want to close the door from their side either.

It’s a HUGE company, one of the largest in IT, I will not name names but having experience with these things I’ve come to realize that a good work environment does not necessarily coincide with a big name.
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Nor does it necessarily relate with good pay. The rules for that are usually related to how in demand that skillset and uniqueness of skillset. And quite often, it’s not related to how hard something is, but rather a function of how much people want to do it. Find a niche in something that no one else wants to do but nevertheless is needed to get done often means specialized compensation. Yes, there are still COBOL hackers that i’m sure do just fine.