Mainframe as a career.

[Baresh Ba]

Hi,

Is mainframe good as a career? How can I learn something more which will be good along with it. I personally like it but there are a lot of folks around me keep on saying that it's not gonaa give good salaries in coming years. What is your thought on this?

[Robert Sample]

If I could accurately foretell the future, I would be making stock picks not answering forum questions! However, one way to answer your question is to review industry literature. Surveys -- even in 2020 -- consistently show that those companies with mainframes have plans to use their mainframes for 10 or 20 more years. A company called Arcati does an annual mainframe survey and you can download their 2020 results from http://www.arcati.com (Download the Mainframe Yearbook on the right side of their home page). Furthermore, there are a lot of current mainframe programmers that are reaching retirement age and leaving the work force. Those two factors should indicate an increasing shortage of mainframe programmers in future years with the usual result of increasing salaries as the shortage continues. Whether or not that will play out is anybody's guess at this time. IBM and other companies have taken steps to increase the number of mainframe programmers through increased education and training opportunities.

There is an international component to consider, too. Many US companies have outsourced mainframe programming to other countries where salaries are lower than the US. This may depress salaries for some time. There is also a counter-movement whereby some US companies have been bringing outsourced operations back to the US due to various issues. So you may think salaries could go up or down based on which trend you believe the most.

[Baresh Ba]

Thank you Robert.

One out of the context question, as you have used 'stocks', is there any stock system using mainframes? No, no pun-intended genuinely want to know.

I agree with your answer, I have also read a number of articles from other websites but people in other technologies are getting better salaries, most of the time. So it becomes question if rest of my career I should stay in mainframe. I still have 25+ years to go in job.

[Robert Sample]

is there any stock system using mainframes?

There probably are but I'm not that aware of financial systems and couldn't say for sure. Companies tend to be pretty quiet about their base systems (to prevent hackers from having knowledge of their systems).

[Baresh Ba]

Thanks for the answer, Robert.

[Prakash Jha]

I think after an experience, in Indian market, every technology has similar situation for the Job, you are a liability to the company and they just don't want to pay you. But as such mainframes is enough stable career.

[AmjzadAli]

Hi,

Read this post. But can someone tell me how can I make myself more relevant to the mainframe career? I know COBOL, JCL, DB2, IMS DB, CICS, VSAM and a couple of more tools used in mainframes but what more should I learn to make more relevant for better jobs? Could someone guide please?

[Anuj Dhawan]

One way can be to start looking at the 'Job profiles' which interest you. Look for the skills any such Job opportunity requires. Start reading about it.

[Taran Bhatia]

This question really concerns in countries like India. The pay you get being a mainframe programmer is just as bogus as it can get. What should one can learn along with Mainframes so that better salaries along with job satisfaction can be achieved? Can some one share your thoughts?

[Shruti Yadav]

I think it's okay to start the career with it. And in India anyways we don't have a choice when we start a fresher we just get to start with what technology we are given. By the time you are 7-8 years experience mainframes salaries are not good compared to other technologies.

But JAVA is also not that good for senior, is not it?

[Md.Imtiaz]

Mainframe Jobs are not that paying in India as they are in other countries. But Data-science, Cloud-computing Jobs do pay very good salary in the start of the career. But I think after you are senior like 15+ years experience, then it depends on the path we choose. But yes mainframe Jobs are not paying much in India.

[Rohit Jain]

Mainframe as a career has lost the charm. Many of us who had been working in this filed and don't get competitive salaries, while on the other side another person from a different technology with same experience are being offered much better salaries. This is the case with India.

In fact in one of the companies, one of my managers asked, when I put down the papers: there are Mainframe Programmers available in market like vegetables, we can get 10 more tomorrow! Things are not fair for sure for technology in mainframe. But after spending many years in this Technology how can we change our career?

[Geetu]

I think every IT career has got it's own pros and cons. I have number of friends in SAP, now their young siblings are asking them if they can start their career in SAP and my friends don't say because they think SAP has been saturated.

I know a Mainframe Architect who makes good salary in India too but I think he has positioned himself that way. So if we positioned ourselves well even mainframes can provide us with great salaries.

[Rohit Jain]

Yeah but my friend is in Data-science and works on Python project and makes Rs. 18,00,000 with just 5 years of experience. That kind of a salary is impossible for anyone in mainframes.

[Geetu]

You are correct but then if we want to stay in mainframes, what can keep us motivated?

[Taran Bhatia]

I was recently reading through one of the posts, which talks about using zowe. I did a search, but their website is not very good in explaining on how to start working with it, Maybe I have not looked it well enough, can anyone direct to a getting-started tutorial for this? Would appreciate.

[Helopant]

Mainframe careers can be a solid choice if you have an interest in them. While some may say it won't offer lucrative salaries in the future, it's important to consider that mainframe technology continues to be vital in various industries.

[Baresh Ba]

Yes, it might continue to be vital but if it does not help to pay bills it becomes a tough choice for career, right?

[DB2 Guy]

That statement can be applied, possibly, to any career choice and not just mainframes, yes? Let me add my thoughts to this:

It can be safely assumed that when computer started and at the same time when some companies had enough money to deploy such "machines" back then, only choice about computers were mainframes. And they grew well - and have a lot of business logic out there written over the years. This business logic is written in different languages and serves the very purpose it was written for.

By the time it was year 2000 and late 90s, many technology pundits started believing other innovations in IT field - nothing wrong with it, however, some of them declared mainframes as 'dead'. Subsequently, a lot of CIOs (which was a new designation in itself back then) started getting 'removing mainframes' as their cost reduction strategy, though I strongly believe that 'thought leaders' of this nature were not from technology background - and they went by 'rumors' then fact - and rumor spread faster than fact!

Fact was, one does not need to replace mainframe - one needs to work with it along with other technology stack. Side effect of this all was - mainframe was not CIOs budget, they wanted to maintain it but for a long time never wanted to invest in to it -- as such, salaries definitely went for toss as rather inexpensive labor in the form of 'outsource' was available. Outsourcing had an impact on other technology stack as well, not just mainframes, however, you get the point.

If your rational is that every UI/UX developers or any other open source technology developer is/are getting paid more, it's not straight forward correct, if someone is getting paid they have done their labor. For instance, just look for the salaries of just Java developers, they are not that good unless they have other skill-set of current market. Today, if you have knowledge of Devops, Cloud computing and mainframe altogether -- you are an asset and can get a very competitive pay, fwiw.

[Taran Bhatia]

Why do they even think of removing a mainframe computer?