6 ms·

What's the z/OS jobs scene like now?

by wyclif 11y ago

NelsonMinar 11y ago
Good, in that many of the folks who know z/OS programming are retiring or dying.
hvs 11y ago
I'm not closely involved with it, but my understanding is that there is a big push to train software engineers in India on z/OS to make up for aging out of talent (i.e. retiring).
- webwanderings 11y ago
  The people in India are cheap compared to the aging IBMers in US. The push is economical and forced. They could easily make the same push here, but it won't happen in the current environment.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    That's not true: there is a push here. There's been previous articles, college partnerships, and so on. I'm not going to pretend they'll put more effort here than on cheap labor. However, there's been colleges teaching COBOL, mainframe, etc, even community colleges, with almost nobody trying to get into those jobs outside people already working one. This is one of few times where there might be a real labor shortage as one generation retires or dies off without another to take the reins.
    - StillBored 11y ago
      I talked to a professor at a community college teaching mainframe skills a couple years ago. I asked him point blank at one point, what the average starting salary for a graduate from his school hired to do mainframe work was. The number he threw out was less than 1/2 of the starting salary of the average comp-sci graduate from the state school down the road. Granted the people from the CC had a two year degree, and were being hired for pretty low level positions. But unless the pay ramp was really steep anyone doing it was crazy not to just enroll in the comp-sci department at the state school and put in the additional two years. I considered if becoming a mainframe expert was a good career move, and from what I can tell midlevel mainframe guys don't make as much as midlevel PHP experts. The top end is ok, but i've heard of people doing vmware designs/installs for more money. Maybe some mainframe guys are paid by the gold bar, but I sure didn't meet any. That is probably why there is a "shortage". People my age look at it and decide its not a good move because while companies will pay 8 figures for a machine they won't pay a fraction of it to the guys running said machine.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Appreciate your perspective on that. Curious, what was the cost of living in that area? Mine is one of the lower in the country: $50-70k/yr/household is decent living. People here often see what people get paid in Bay area, New York, Chicago, etc and think we're hugely ripped off. Then, they look at housing, etc to see a bit different picture. So, I wonder if it's that industry segment in general getting ripped off or just your area.
        StillBored 11y ago
        The area in question was a large midwestern city, so its not exactly tops, but the pay rates for computer people in that area are almost always >$100k for anyone with experience. I don't have a breakdown of payrates for the CC in question, but I'm guessing many of the students going into plumbing/electrician/AC repair/etc were making as much or more than the students going into the mainframe positions.
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Ouch...
      - marktangotango 11y ago
        I think there's a distinction to made in this discussion between mainframe application programmers (ie cobol, anyone taking intro courses at an IBM sponsored school) and system programmers ie the guys setting up and writing site integration stuff ie the guys these books are ttargeted toward. Similar to php vs people writing drivers in your example. Unfortunately this distinction is rarely delinated in these threads.
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I didn't make that distinction. Good that you brought it up. Any more information on that distinction in form of articles or salary surveys?
      - 11y ago
  - pjmlp 11y ago
    Same thing in Europe. People are picky what technology to work on, whereas Indian consulting companies will just work with anything they can get their hands on, regardless of the technology or pay.
nickpsecurity 11y ago
Best time to get in it. Learn mainframe, CICS, RPG, and COBOL. Among these are many jobs that work steady hours with pay that stays the same or increases over time due to lack of labor. Boring, predictable work. Pretty much the opposite of IT in general. And remember that you can always do consulting or FOSS in modern tech after hours for fun. ;)
- marktangotango 11y ago
  What do you base this on? There are also tens of thousands of layed cobol programmers who are unemployed or working in other fields (in the US), the legacy of offshoring and cost reduction of the past 15 years. I am one. I started mainframe cobol in 2003, grew the skills you listed for 5 years. It's a miserable existence for anyone really interested in developement. The company I worked for had just started their off shoring program when I switched to JEE (I took a pay cut, but am way ahead now). That same company subsequently laid off most of their onshore developers. This is mainframe applications programming today, there maybe jobs, but not in the US.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    There's job adds all over the country plus people retiring. Personally, I think it varies area by area. Places with a lot of big companies with legacy systems need employees. Others... not so much. The offshoring issue is real. It's why most of America's brightest in CompSci and Math are going to financial sector instead of IT. Any time I meet someone trying to get into IT I recommend against it. Only exception, which is risky, is embedded where the need to physically be there reduces offshoring risk. ASIC's, too, so long as you get out of RTL work as quickly as possible: it's all going to Asia.

What's the z/OS jobs scene like now?

by wyclif 11y ago

What's the z/OS jobs scene like now?

NelsonMinar 11y ago

Good, in that many of the folks who know z/OS programming are retiring or dying.

hvs 11y ago

I'm not closely involved with it, but my understanding is that there is a big push to train software engineers in India on z/OS to make up for aging out of talent (i.e. retiring).

webwanderings 11y ago
The people in India are cheap compared to the aging IBMers in US. The push is economical and forced. They could easily make the same push here, but it won't happen in the current environment.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  That's not true: there is a push here. There's been previous articles, college partnerships, and so on. I'm not going to pretend they'll put more effort here than on cheap labor. However, there's been colleges teaching COBOL, mainframe, etc, even community colleges, with almost nobody trying to get into those jobs outside people already working one. This is one of few times where there might be a real labor shortage as one generation retires or dies off without another to take the reins.
  - StillBored 11y ago
    I talked to a professor at a community college teaching mainframe skills a couple years ago. I asked him point blank at one point, what the average starting salary for a graduate from his school hired to do mainframe work was. The number he threw out was less than 1/2 of the starting salary of the average comp-sci graduate from the state school down the road. Granted the people from the CC had a two year degree, and were being hired for pretty low level positions. But unless the pay ramp was really steep anyone doing it was crazy not to just enroll in the comp-sci department at the state school and put in the additional two years. I considered if becoming a mainframe expert was a good career move, and from what I can tell midlevel mainframe guys don't make as much as midlevel PHP experts. The top end is ok, but i've heard of people doing vmware designs/installs for more money. Maybe some mainframe guys are paid by the gold bar, but I sure didn't meet any. That is probably why there is a "shortage". People my age look at it and decide its not a good move because while companies will pay 8 figures for a machine they won't pay a fraction of it to the guys running said machine.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      Appreciate your perspective on that. Curious, what was the cost of living in that area? Mine is one of the lower in the country: $50-70k/yr/household is decent living. People here often see what people get paid in Bay area, New York, Chicago, etc and think we're hugely ripped off. Then, they look at housing, etc to see a bit different picture. So, I wonder if it's that industry segment in general getting ripped off or just your area.
      - StillBored 11y ago
        The area in question was a large midwestern city, so its not exactly tops, but the pay rates for computer people in that area are almost always >$100k for anyone with experience. I don't have a breakdown of payrates for the CC in question, but I'm guessing many of the students going into plumbing/electrician/AC repair/etc were making as much or more than the students going into the mainframe positions.
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Ouch...
    - marktangotango 11y ago
      I think there's a distinction to made in this discussion between mainframe application programmers (ie cobol, anyone taking intro courses at an IBM sponsored school) and system programmers ie the guys setting up and writing site integration stuff ie the guys these books are ttargeted toward. Similar to php vs people writing drivers in your example. Unfortunately this distinction is rarely delinated in these threads.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I didn't make that distinction. Good that you brought it up. Any more information on that distinction in form of articles or salary surveys?
    - 11y ago
- pjmlp 11y ago
  Same thing in Europe. People are picky what technology to work on, whereas Indian consulting companies will just work with anything they can get their hands on, regardless of the technology or pay.

nickpsecurity 11y ago

Best time to get in it. Learn mainframe, CICS, RPG, and COBOL. Among these are many jobs that work steady hours with pay that stays the same or increases over time due to lack of labor. Boring, predictable work. Pretty much the opposite of IT in general. And remember that you can always do consulting or FOSS in modern tech after hours for fun. ;)

marktangotango 11y ago
What do you base this on? There are also tens of thousands of layed cobol programmers who are unemployed or working in other fields (in the US), the legacy of offshoring and cost reduction of the past 15 years. I am one. I started mainframe cobol in 2003, grew the skills you listed for 5 years. It's a miserable existence for anyone really interested in developement. The company I worked for had just started their off shoring program when I switched to JEE (I took a pay cut, but am way ahead now). That same company subsequently laid off most of their onshore developers. This is mainframe applications programming today, there maybe jobs, but not in the US.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  There's job adds all over the country plus people retiring. Personally, I think it varies area by area. Places with a lot of big companies with legacy systems need employees. Others... not so much. The offshoring issue is real. It's why most of America's brightest in CompSci and Math are going to financial sector instead of IT. Any time I meet someone trying to get into IT I recommend against it. Only exception, which is risky, is embedded where the need to physically be there reduces offshoring risk. ASIC's, too, so long as you get out of RTL work as quickly as possible: it's all going to Asia.