Company offers employee $30k to take over a job that nobody else knows how to do: 'Is this a trap?'

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Company offered me a $30k raise to take over a job nobody else knows how to do. Is this a trap?

I'm 28 and work in operations for a regional logistics company. Been here about 3 years. The guy who manages our entire inventory system is retiring in January after 31 years. The problem is he built most of the system himself back in the early 2000s and apparently nobody else fully understands how it works.
Management offered me his position with a $30k raise and a new title. I'd have about two months to learn everything from him before he leaves.
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Here's what worries me. They attempted to replace this system two years ago and the migration failed so badly they abandoned the project. There's barely any documentation, no outside support and I'd essentially become the only person responsible for keeping it running.
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The money is tempting but I'm worried I'll spend the next few years maintaining some ancient software instead of building skills that are useful anywhere else. My director keeps telling me this is a huge opportunity because I'd become indispensable.
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Has anyone taken a role like this? Does becoming indispensable at one company actually help your career or does it just make you impossible to promote?
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Commenters gave their ideas on how to tackle this career quandary.

andre3kthegiant Get the source code from the elder. Put it all into Al and ask it to review and critique for the functions it should be completing. Have the Al re-print the source code with verbose annotations in the code, a user manual document the administrator of the system and a separate copy for the end users.
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Two folks shake hands over a table of documents at work
Familiar Kale_7357 Generally, being the expert in a one-off hand-built proprietary system is a de d-end career move. That de d-end might have been decades long for the guy retiring, but it's not going to be for you.
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The way to turn this into a good career move is for you to be the agent for modernization. Don't be the one keeping this thing kicking along while some other group builds up the replacement. If that's what they're thinking, you need to
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nix that. You need to drive and lead that change. That skillset alone - the migration - is marketable. "What's my budget for modernization", and "what kind of staff will I have for modernization", and "what leeway will I have in selecting the new tech stack".
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Legitimate_Cap_5396 You actually have the opportunity in using Al to fully understand, map the architecture, document, identify vulnerabilities in a transition, and develop a full systematic, incremental plan. to actually transition out of a
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probably extremely brittle, extremely vulnerable system. But be careful, you have to actually know how to work with Ai at that scale. Is not a magic box. At the very least you have to provide it as much contact as possible and also thoroughly manage its investigation of the system to be able to put it into the context of the whole business.
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Maybe this is an airgapped system, but if it is not, it is very likely that it could be extremely vulnerable to anyone that is motivated or even not, depending on the stack it uses.
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numbersthen0987431 The reason why the transition was a failure was because the old refused to participate. Sure, he may have pretended to cooperate, but he mostly sandbagged the whole process so they wouldn't fire him earlier.
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Now is the perfect time to take over. Learn everything he'll teach you, ask a million questions, and then figure out how to integrate it into an actual program.
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No_Pickle_9804 Take it, learn everything. Then ask for another £30k
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InnerPositive6730 Negotiate a bonus tied to getting off the software. $30k in salary- $100k for a successful sunset.
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Lowcountrytiger Sounds like you have massive leverage. I would negotiate for more whether it be money or something else....can you ask for $50k and see if they meet you at $40k? Banking that money today would set you up nicely... plus you would still hold massive leverage on your company in the future
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_shoes1 This is a stupid company to have a single point of failure. for the system. What happens if that guy dies tomorrow? Take the job like others have said, you will have all the leverage
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