Y2K Consultant
Find and fix every two-digit year in a bank's software before midnight on December 31, 1999. If nothing happens, you've done it perfectly. Nobody will believe you.
1995 – 2000About the role
In the 1990s, the world realized that decades of software stored years as two digits, and that in 2000 a lot of it might decide it was 1900. Companies spent hundreds of billions of dollars fixing it, much of it on consultants who read old code line by line. When midnight came and very little went wrong, many people concluded it had never been a problem.
At Albion & Crane, a replica bank with a mainframe in the basement, you'll work through 40,000 lines of COBOL looking for dates. You'll expand them, test them and report progress to a steering committee that would like it to be faster. On December 31, you'll be in the data center at midnight. Bring snacks.
What you'll do
- Read legacy COBOL line by line and find every two-digit year.
- Expand each date from YY to YYYY, then test it.
- Present a weekly risk report to the steering committee, in color.
- Bill in fifteen-minute increments.
- Be in the data center at midnight on December 31.
What we're looking for
- COBOL, from any decade.
- Patience with code written before you were born.
- Calm in front of a countdown clock.
- No plans for New Year's Eve, 1999.
Perks
- A consultant's day rateHistorically the best in the industry. Billed in quarter hours.
- New Year's Eve in the data centerChampagne at 00:01, once the systems are confirmed up.
- Bragging rightsNothing happened. That's how you know it worked.
