Re: Is a career switch to the mainframe/cobol world responsible?


PeterC wrote:
Hello all,

I am in my mid twenties and got five year fulltime IT experience (system
engineer in the microsoft world)
I found out that these days a lot of major companies are in desperate need
of mainframe people.
A manager told me they are hard to find, especially young people dont wanna
learn mainframe anymore.

They are especially hard to find if you don't look seriously enough for
them. I have been out of work for two years, as have many other UK
based mainframers. The problem is twofold: passage of work to India
(chance to rewrite EM Forsters work?) and managers not wanting to pay
much for the work.


I found a big financial enterprise which search a lot of mainframe
application developers (cobol, pl1, etc..).

Go for it. Stay clear of PL/1 as I think IBM are losing interest in it
(see the thread elsewhere in this newsgroup)


Is the choice to switch to the mainframe world, and lets say become a cobol
developer, a responsible choice for a young
guy to make? Does the mainframe and the cobol has a future?

It is a reasonable choice if it pays and you have a serious chance of
longterm employment. However, if you are a whizz at Java then switching
to Cobol will be a retrograde step. However, a mix of Cobol and Java
could stand you in good stead when converting or integrating
Cobol/Java.

It is a brilliant choice if your current situation is unemployed or
matchbox seller.


Thanks in advance,

Patriarch

.

Relevant Pages

  • Comments on Re: Is there a mainframe skills shortage?
    ... The following posting is a comment on an article about mainframe ... believes both COBOL and mainframes are on life support and that there ... this Gartner report failed to identify which specific skills were ... this mainframe skills shortage problem is geographical; ...
    (bit.listserv.ibm-main)
  • Re: System Conversion - An Overview
    ... predominately two reasons - we getting off of the mainframe or we feel ... convert part or all of the COBOL application to JAVA. ... I am responding to a client RFP this month, ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: System Conversion - An Overview
    ... COBOL based applications. ... Most of our clients have IDMS, Datacom, IMS, ... predominately two reasons - we getting off of the mainframe or we feel ... convert part or all of the COBOL application to JAVA. ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Could this save COBOL?
    ... about OO and the mainframe. ... COBOL, unlike the other languages was not a major part of most ... to a database. ... The Dot NET environment is all ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)
  • Re: Is there a mainframe skills shortage?
    ... The logic is that as baby-boomer mainframe coders and administrators leave ... their mainframe environments or maintaining legacy COBOL code. ... this Gartner report failed to identify which specific skills were ... Administrators and managers (with CICS, zOS, and systems management ...
    (comp.lang.cobol)