r/mainframe

23 years back when I started in mainframe at my first job, lot of my friends said Mainframe is dying and won't be around after 5 years. Most of those friends who were in java, .net etc lost their jobs multiple time and had to hunt for other jobs multiple times in their career. But luckily I was able to job switch on my own terms and job was pretty much stable all through out these 23 years. Even now I get tons of emails on new job opportunities in Mainframe. I got opportunities to work as manager and QA but I keep coming back to work as developer as that is what gives me most joy.

Looking back, I think it was a good decision to stay put. Eager to know what your story is. Only gripe about Mainframe is that I haven't seen many jobs that offer over $150,000 in mainframe where as in Java and .NET its quite common to get above $200,000 for experienced developers.

With AI picking up fast, even mainframe roles don’t feel as “safe” as they used to.

Curious—what can we do to stay relevant and not get easily replaced?

Are we upskilling, moving to cloud, or doubling down on core tech like CICS and REXX?

We run an environment with both Unisys and IBM Z/OS platforms. I have ONE person who is crosstraining from the IBM side into the Unisys side to help with Ops and data interchange (MQ and MFT). If I were to need to replace this person up here in Washington state, how hard do think that would be to find someone to do that?

In my experience, from mostly windows, a CA issued certificate usually has 3 elements – leaf, intermediate, and root. (I know, there is also a private key element)

I am currently dealing with a Linux JDBC client connection into mainframe ZOS DB2 port using AT-TLS (CDC) and the thing I am having difficulty confirming is which of the 3 elements of the certificate needs to be in the JDBC client trust store.

AI is as always confidently saying: that the mainframe only presents the leaf, and therefore the trust store on the client side needs to contain the intermediate and root certificate.

This is important when we later need to renew the certificate, because that means, that if the intermediate and root certificate doesn’t change, the client trust store, doesn’t need to be updated, and the server can freely switch to the new certificate.

But I cannot find confirmation, that this is how it is supposed to be done; can anyone help me find a source?

More details: IBM CDC replication engine uses source and target concepts where there are plenty of descriptions of certificate requirements, however this isn’t about encryption between IBM CDC source and target agents, it is about source agent connection to the source database, which in this case is a ZOS DB2 database.

ibm cdc replication engine db2 zos remote source (linux)

Hi everyone,

I have used AI for formatting this post.

I have around 5 years of experience working in Mainframe technologies, mainly COBOL, JCL, batch support, production support, and related maintenance activities.

I want to move to back end development.

I’m a bit confused about the best way to transition from mainframe to backend, especially considering my experience level.

Some of the questions I have:

Which backend stack would be better to learn now (Java/Spring Boot, Python, Node.js, etc.)?

How difficult is it to switch from the mainframe after 5 years?

Should I target service-based companies first or directly for product-based companies?

What kind of projects should I build to make my profile stronger?

How should I prepare for interviews as someone coming from a non-backend background?

Is cloud knowledge (AWS) necessary for backend roles nowadays?

I’m willing to put in the effort and learn properly, but I want to follow a realistic roadmap instead of randomly learning technologies.

Would really appreciate advice from people who made a similar transition or are currently working in backend development.

Thanks in advance!

I have been learning all things IT since I was 14, got an OCA Java cert from Oracle at 16, and have been working as an ETL developer for the past year as an intern. I chose to pursue a business/economics degree since I genuinely didn't want university to kill my passion. Now I realized I don't want to stop at my current level and started learning about mainframes, z/OS and low level languages such as Assembly and COBOL. I have been looking at Computer Systems Engineering / Systems and Networking Master's degrees that I would genuinely enjoy doing. Right now I am planning to start my career as an actuary because I love math, and the math knowledge would definitely aid me in Engineering too since the basics of the math (Advanced calculus, differential equations, stochastic processes...etc) is the same for both areas, although the application is different.

I want to know if I can somehow combine these three interests. I was thinking the easiest way is to create a consulting firm that focuses on risk and systems architecture but I've never heard of something like that and I'd like a reality check. Should I just use actuarial math as a stepping stone to get ready for Engineering grad school admissions? Or can I actually integrate it somehow into my career?

Anyone have a solution that works well with windows environment

Hey do you know any Discords servers for Hercules390 emulator or Mainframe users? I found System Z Enthusiasts, but invite link is expired 😞

I’m pretty green, graduated in 2020. Just started a new job as an engineer last month at a larger company with proper change control, peer review, mentorship, clear career development opportunities. I’m so excited I made the jump because I’ve primarily worked in small shops where I just learned by the seat of my pants, praying with every keystroke I don’t take down prod (got really good at restoring from backups!) Don’t get me wrong, I have had some great mentors, but constant baptism by fire gets old fast.

I’ve been admittedly hesitant about AI because I wasn’t sure how impactful it might be, but I did present ChatGPT to my team right around when they rolled it out a few years ago. company didn’t want to pay for it. At the time, I just saw the single vertical opportunity to document the legacy systems i was struggling to understand and maintain for them, starting to think there’s a lot more to it than that. I get it, still early and some companies move slower than others.

My new company is 100% full steam ahead with AI and how to reach every role in the company with it. They have a ton of stuff available to us for learning and are giving out tokens like crazy from what i’ve heard. We even have a leaderboard for people who save the most “hours” through automation. It’s not something I can be hesitant about anymore. But my dev team is pretty set in their ways, not “all-in” like some are in the company. So I honestly have a lot of training and catch up to do and an opportunity on my team to signal to the company that I’m on board.

I guess I have kinda had my head in the sand about it and I suspect a lot of people are like that right now. This sudden shift in my personal world and experience has been a little jarring for me, some folks are saying Engineering roles won’t exist at all, some say it will change but grow because of the ability to amplify an engineers output. I have terrible anxiety and grew up pretty broke, so really worried about being let go and the market for my skills evaporating. I’m really worried about the 5-10 year horizon for me. that’ll be my 30s and possibly some of my highest earning opportunity years are probably there. If I miss the boat by not staying up to date with AI or AI is truly able to replace me and my labor, I am really worried I’ll end up back to broke. I cannot stress enough how nice it is to not be at the bottom of the hierarchy pyramid of needs.

I have been saving money too, but just had a lot happen the last year so e fund is pretty wiped out but my households savings rate is roughly 20% right now and should bounce back by the end of the year. Most of my peers aren’t able to or choose not to save anything at all so I feel OK about the 20% but also i’m kicking myself for not saving more.

How are you folks navigating this within your orgs? What are you doing to hedge? I had a plumber over today and thought his job is safe probably for that 5-10 year horizon, not that it’s particularly enjoyable work. But even if so, if people like me become unemployable en masse who’s going to pay the plumber to come out? Idk I guess I’m just late 20s and worried about the decade ahead. There has always been a lot of uncertainty, I know. I’m sure there’s lots of folks on this page who were working on these very same systems during the 1970s oil crisis, or the 80s debt crisis, or the .com bubble, or the 08 financial crisis, or covid so I’d love to hear how to mentally navigate those. I’m just tired man. I got thru covid right as i started working and it sucked, do I just have to keep doing that forever and hope to get lucky?

The Change Management Cave has three snakes. They don't bite. They just ask for a business owner. It is 3:47 AM. There is no business owner.

I Built a browser game inspired by MVS. Runs in HTML/JavaScript no mainframe required. Everything is based on real conventions.

WHAT YOU DO:

Login with RACF - userid (2-8 chars) and password (min 8,rejects "password" / "mainframe" / your userid / sequential chars,runs a strength analyser, asks for confirmation). After auth you get a random EBCDIC art wallpaper - 11 of them, all Pulp Fiction mainframe mashups. "ROYALE WITH COBOL." "SAY 'ABEND' AGAIN." "WHOSE CHOPPER IS IT? ZED'S CHOPPER."

Then: ISPF → SDSF → examine failed PAYROLL1 → find COBPAY03 → read the code → find the HR migration in the change log → fix the PIC clause → compile (cave with stalactites) → linkedit (IEWL oracle resolves external references) → Change Management Cave (three animated pixel snakes, RFC forms going back to 1987, emergency approval at 3:47 AM) → deploy → T-Rex victory dance with Python/Java/Zed/AI/Quantum celebrating.

THE COBOL FIX IS TECHNICALLY CORRECT:

COBPAY03 had WS-BASE-SALARY defined as PIC S9(7)V99 COMP-3. The HR migration changed incoming data to zoned decimal. Fix: remove COMP-3 from the PIC clause. COBOL's MOVE handles packed/zoned numeric conversion automatically - the field just needs the right PIC definition to match the incoming format.

The snakes are metaphorical. The RFC forms are not.

Play it: https://infomanta.com/games/quest-mainframe.html

Happy to answer questions about the COBOL fix or anything else in the game that looks wrong.