The problem isn't as much understanding what the code does (that's hard but not impossible), but understanding why that duplicate INSERT into the database is needed.

The guy who no longer works at the company knew it was because of a bug in the DB that wasn't fixed by the vendor after the company cancelled the maintenance contract due to financial difficulties during the great recession.

AI doesn't and can't know that. So AI proposes to "fix the bug as we port it" and remove the double INSERT. The CTO sends an email saying that the new AI fixed 174 bugs during the porting process and now the company has a much better and resilient system.

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Yeah, "We are looking for a developer specialized in critical Java code following idiomatic COBOL which hasn't been tested in production yet and which nobody is sure about whether the exact behavior matches what's been running in production. You will enjoy meaningful work in an environment which has been considering engaging in environmental concerns for decades and which caries the well-being and social condition of fellow human beings as a core values, directly addressing your middle age existential crisis. Extra bonus points if you like using LLMs. The pay is good, but remember you are a Java developer, not a COBOL developer, and also remember we are already paying for tokens to do your job. Those are also possibly getting more and more expensive so we'll see about the raises. Job starts as soon as possible."