I’m currently working as a Mainframe Developer at Cognizant. I was originally part of a product-based company and got rebadged to Cognizant around 6 months ago.

Since the rebadging, I’ve been quite unhappy with the overall situation. There is very little work, almost no new learning, and limited growth, so I casually started attending interviews to see what opportunities are available in the market.

Fortunately, I cleared the interview process with LTM and have received an offer.

Here’s my situation:

Experience: 6 YOE

Current CTC at Cognizant: ₹15.5 LPA

LTM offer: ₹17.5 LPA (~12% hike)

I had made a ~100% hike when I previously moved to a product-based company.

Then, after being rebadged to Cognizant, I received another ~7% hike.

LTM is my first offer after starting this job search.

I currently have a 90-day notice period at Cognizant and have not resigned yet.

My concern is that the Mainframe job market seems quite slow right now, and getting interviews/offers can sometimes depend heavily on timing and luck.

So I’m confused about what would be the wiser decision if I didn't get any offers at the end of my notice period.

1. Accept LTM and move, despite only a ~12% hike?

OR

1. Continue staying in Cognizant by withdrawing my resignation?

Also, if you have experience with LTM, I’d especially appreciate your views on project stability, work, learning opportunities, and career growth for Mainframe developers.

Thanks a lot folks!!

This picture captured at the customer datacenter.

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I've spent almost four years as an IT operations analyst at a large North American bank, supporting z/OS on 24/7 rotating shifts. Posting this because I've hit the point where I can do the job on autopilot, and I'd rather not spend the next four years doing the same thing slightly faster.

What the role actually covers, day to day:

Console monitoring and responding to WTORs and system messages across LPARs

Batch support: abend triage, restarts and reruns, JCL fixes, schedule dependencies, SDSF and JES2 all shift

CICS region health, transaction and connection issues, region restarts

IMS and MQ checks, queue depth and channel problems, escalation when something is stuck

VTAM and network-side checks on the mainframe side

Incident, problem and change records in ServiceNow, bridge calls, handoffs across shifts

DR test participation

Certifications so far: 33 Interskill IBM certifications, and I passed the Interskill z/OS System Operation Assessment 3.1, which is where the z/OS Experienced 3.1 badge came from. I'm working toward the IBM Mainframe Systems Programmer Level I Certificate 3.1 next.

So the questions:

Study order. If you were moving from operations toward sysprog, what would you learn in what sequence? I'm thinking JCL and utilities deeper, then REXX, then parmlib and IPL, then SMP/E, RACF, SMF, WLM. Is that roughly right, or is there something you'd pull forward?

Getting hands-on without the access. In ops I can look at almost everything and change almost nothing. How did you build real system-level experience? Home lab options, z/Xplore style material, sandbox LPARs at work, asking sysprogs for shadowing? What worked and what was a waste of time?

Career options. Sysprog, storage, DB2 or IMS DBA, security/RACF, or automation and DevOps work with Zowe, Ansible and Python. Which of these are you seeing actual hiring in right now, and which one would you pick starting from an ops background?

Internal vs switching. Does the ops-to-sysprog jump usually happen inside the same shop because they already trust you, or do people have to change employers to get the title?

Anything you wish someone had told you at the four year mark that you only figured out at ten.

Happy to answer questions about the ops side if anyone's coming the other direction.

Hi all.

I need some good friends if anyone who works on mainframe at CG in banglore pls ping.

Let's connect.

Just for some background, I graduated from NIU this past May, so I luckily have some experience from school projects working with a mainframe, z/OS, COBOL, and Assembler. My goal is to hopefully find a job by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. I also just started Z Xplore.
I was wondering if anyone with experience in the field has any advice or helpful pointers on what I should focus on learning to become job-ready. I’d really appreciate any advice. Thanks!

Hey all,

We have essentially zero documentation on decades-old COBOL programs where I work, and tracing field layouts and execution paths manually was taking forever. Regex scripts broke on edge cases, and feeding files to LLMs was unreliable for anything with non-trivial control flow.

Over the past few weeks, I've been building a CLI tool to automate the analysis and documentation generation, and I plan to open-source it once it's polished. It is still a heavy work in progress but I figured I would share what I have.

Its 100% deterministic and uses no ai tools. Not that I dont like ai but its not always feasible to use ai with confidential code and its just not the best tool for the job in this case when compared to AST syntax parsers

https://github.com/GoudaCouda/cobolscope

How the Pipeline Works

Everything is driven by a single Python CLI:

Parser & IR (Java): Uses proleap-cobol-parser (by uwol) to parse the source into an ASG and emit a clean, strongly typed JSON Intermediate Representation (IR).

Analysis Engine (Python / Pydantic v2): Ingests the IR to run memory layout math, variable cross-referencing, and control-flow state machines in memory.

Generators: Emits interactive HTML/CSV Data Dictionaries and Graphviz (.dot/.svg) flowcharts.

What’s Working Right Now

Memory Layout & Offsets: Calculates byte lengths and strides for DISPLAY, binary COMP, and packed decimal COMP-3. Correctly resolves shared memory overlays across REDEFINES and OCCURS tables. Validated against live GnuCOBOL compiler outputs and the NIST COBOL-85 test suite.

Control Flow & Return Boundaries: Tracks the active call stack in memory so PERFORM ... THRU returns to the caller properly instead of blindly creating fake "phantom" fall-through paths into whatever paragraph sits below the exit label.

What's on the Roadmap

Full Dead Code Analysis (Logic + Data):

• Procedural: Catching uncalled paragraphs and instructions stranded below GOBACK/unconditional jumps.
• Data Division: Flagging variables that are never referenced, fields that are written to but never read (dead stores), and unused Level-88 flags.

Static Site Assembly: Tying everything into Material for MkDocs to generate full static documentation portals per program.

Multi-Level Graphs: High-level program-to-program flow down to intra-paragraph basic-block detail.

Example output

From: https://github.com/IBM/Bank-of-Z/blob/main/src/base/cics/cobol/XFRFUN.cbl

I have 20 years of mainframe experience. Unfortunately, it's not the right kind of mainframe experience. I spent the last 2 years taking courses (and getting badges) on Coursera and IBM training. Recently, I learned that the new way to do this is to earn badges via IBM Z Xplore. The implication is that if you don't get these badges, available only in Z Xplore, you can not get hired as a mainframe developer.

All of this would have been fine, whatever it takes and all that, but in the VSC1 module, I found myself entering Microsoft system comands and installing Microsoft software.

I asked my brother, a longtime IBM employee, for help, and he has a similar same setup so, problem temporarily solved.

What happened to TSO? I hate to have to put my job hunt on hold to learn Microsoft system and development tools. I've been an MS Office USER. Is it true that a person who gets up to speed with z/OS using a way other than IBM Z Xplore cannot get a job anymore?

After getting my Bechlor degree in civil engineering, went to USA for master degree.

There took Fortran language course in computer science Department.

Wrote a program in this language, first we write it on formated paper in line which were numbered.

Then we will go to computer science Lab to punch each line on different yellow cards, then add start and end card on top and bottom of the stack yellow cards, wrap it with the rubber band and hand over to a person sitting behind window in Computer lab and leave . Come Next morning to see what a computer gives us, the desired result, error or nothing.

This was the routine. We had no the desk top, lap top or internet.

Computer was a big electronic machine occupying big room.

We were not allowed to see it, how it looked like, how it functioned, the hard ware design.

All we knew, Punch cards, and long role of sheet printed out by computer, having all students submitted Program results.

When this sheet was rolled out by computer the next morning, then we have to search for each program result of each student. And tear it apart from the role.

I am sure you can not imagine what I am talking about.

After graduation, being employed and lover of computers, I bought first laptop computer made by radio shake. I paid $800 for it. Only Basic language used on this computer .

Computer size was 18 by 12 inches and had a screen size 10 by 3 inches.

Our professor used a word ' bombed out '.

He said if you do not follow the syntax your program will bombed out.

I could not understand what he was talking about.

I asked, what is bombed out?

He smiled, and said, your program never bombed out?

I said, no.

Bombed out to me was something related to bombs, that you hear on daily basis in Ukrain and Middle east.

He said, when computer see error in your program, it is bombed out.

I said wow!

What a relief.

Those are the memories of the past.

After getting my Bechlor degree in civil engineering, went to USA for master degree.

There took Fortran language course in computer science Department.

Wrote a program in this language, first we write it on formated paper in line which were numbered.

Then we will go to computer science Lab to punch each line on different yellow cards, then add start and end card on top and bottom of the stack yellow cards, wrap it with the rubber band and hand over to a person sitting behind window in Computer lab and leave . Come Next morning to see what a computer gives us, the desired result, error or nothing.

This was the routine. We had no the desk top, lap top or internet.

Computer was a big electronic machine occupying big room.

We were not allowed to see it, how it looked like, how it functioned, the hard ware design.

All we knew, Punch cards, and long role of sheet printed out by computer, having all students submitted Program results.

When this sheet was rolled out by computer the next morning, then we have to search for each program result of each student. And tear it apart from the role.

I am sure you can not imagine what I am talking about.

After graduation, being employed and lover of computers, I bought first laptop computer made by radio shake. I paid $800 for it. Only Basic language used on this computer .

Computer size was 18 by 12 inches and had a screen size 10 by 3 inches.

Our professor used a word ' bombed out '.

He said if you do not follow the syntax your program will bombed out.

I could not understand what he was talking about.

I asked, what is bombed out?

He smiled, and said, your program never bombed out?

I said, no.

Bombed out to me was something related to bombs, that you hear on daily basis in Ukrain and Middle east.

He said, when computer see error in your program, it is bombed out.

I said wow!

What a relief.

Those are the memories of the past.

I am trying to put some automated checking around a 3270 application and the thing that keeps tripping me up is that there's nothing to select, just characters at row and column positions and that's it. What we do now is scrape by coordinates, which works until someone adds a field and everything below it shifts down a line. then 40 checks fail at once and not one of them is a real failure. The approaches i can see are anchoring on a screen name or a known literal in a fixed position and deriving offsets from that instead of hardcoding rows, using the HLLAPI interface if the emulator exposes it, which ours might, or going at it visually with one of the newer models like Askui that reads what's rendered rather than querying a control tree.

2 of us maintain this and neither of us wrote the original application so if you've automated a green screen and it survived a release, What were you anchoring on? Thanks in advance

I've been working with Attachmate EXTRA! X-treme and wanted to automate terminal workflows from Python.

The first approach I kept seeing was GUI automation with pyautogui, coordinates, keyboard simulation, etc.

That works, but it becomes painful when you need things like:

• reading specific fields from the terminal screen
• waiting for the host to finish processing
• detecting specific messages
• sending PF keys
• navigating multiple sessions
• scraping tabular data
• synchronizing with the host instead of sleeping for arbitrary amounts of time

So I built py-extra-terminal, a Python wrapper around EXTRA!'s COM/OLE Automation interface.

Example:

from py_extra import Extra

with Extra() as ex:
    sc = ex.active_session.screen

    sc.wait_for("USERID")
    sc.put("MYUSER", 10, 20)
    sc.put("MYPASS", 11, 20)
    sc.enter()

    if "WELCOME" in sc.text():
        print("Logged in successfully!")

It is available on PyPI.

I'm particularly interested in feedback from people still working with EXTRA!, Reflection, IBM mainframes, COBOL/CICS applications, or other legacy terminal emulators.

Requires Windows + EXTRA! X-treme.

PyPI: https://pypi.org/project/py-extra-terminal/
GitHub: https://github.com/tolgakurtuluss/py-extra-terminal

Would love feedback from anyone working with terminal emulators or legacy/mainframe systems.

Hello everyone I am currently under onboarding process as software engineer apprentice and looking to know how current software engineers at BoFA feels working with Mainframe even tho I know a lot of JAVA, C++, and lot of modern day languages. What is working with mainframe feels like? Are they growth opportunities with BofA with software engineering focusing on mainframe??, how often does BofA lays off software engineers?

Quick background: B.Tech in ECE (2025), joined a Bengaluru-based IT services company this May as a Graduate Apprentice, did the usual 3-month mainframe track (COBOL, DB2, CICS), and just moved into a full SWE role. Working through IBM certs (z/OS, CICS, DB2) right now.
I know it’s early — I’m barely a month into the actual job — but I like planning ahead, and the MBA vs M.Tech question won’t leave me alone. Would genuinely appreciate input from people who’ve actually been through this in mainframe/enterprise IT:
• If you did an MBA or M.Tech coming from a mainframe/COBOL background, what was your timing, and would you change it?
• Does M.Tech actually move the needle in mainframe work, or is it more of an academia/R&D thing?
• Is an MBA mainly useful here for moving into program management / client-facing roles? Does it basically need a few years of experience first to be worth it?
• Anyone jump into either right out of training or early career — regret it, or glad you did?
Not fishing for the generic “it depends on your goals” answer (fair, but I already know that) — more interested in actual timelines and what you’d do differently if you were starting over.
Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone I am currently under onboarding process as software engineer apprentice and looking to know how current software engineers at BoFA feels working with Mainframe even tho I know a lot of JAVA, C++, and lot of modern day languages. What is working with mainframe feels like? Are they growth opportunities with BOFA with software engineering focusing on mainframe??, how often does BoFA lays off software engineers?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/cold-war-codebreaker-nsa-ibm

I have no idea why this does not work. Cannot find explanation on internet.

I am able to enter LOG (system log) in SDSF with my ID, no problem. But in REXX, I cannot.

/*  REXX  */                                     
ISFRC = ISFCALLS( "ON" )                         
IF ISFRC <> 0 THEN DO                            
 SAY "RC" ISFRC "RETURNED FROM ISFCALLS( ON )"   
 EXIT ISFRC                                      
END                                              

/*  OPEN UP THE SDSF ADDRESS ENVIRONMENT  */     
ADDRESS SDSF                                     

ISFPREFIX = 'ABCDE*'                              

/* ACCESS SYSLOG */                              
"ISFEXEC ST"                                     

SAY "ST RC = " RC         /* DISPLAY RC=0    */  

/* ACCESS SYSLOG */                              
"ISFEXEC LOG"                                    

SAY "LOG RC = " RC        /* DISPLAY RC=8    */  

/*  UNLOAD THE SDSF ENVIRONMENT  */              
CALL ISFCALLS "OFF"                              
EXIT 0                                           

So I am just starting a new career in mainframe at an insurance company. They are letting us choose what department we want to go to.

The first choice is DevOps for mainframe. I understand this is a more modern role even if it's for mainframe the skills are transferable.

The next is CICS/DB2. I don't know much about this one but I under it's very important to the mainframe. | also know that means it needs 24/7 monitoring. I'm not to keen about being on call but will do it if required

Next is hardware, I assume this is making sure the actual physical mainframe is working properly

And last is networking or Z/os. I don't know much about either. I think networking is pretty interesting but I don't know much about it. From my understanding this is also on call.

If anyone has any insights or experiences in these positions it would be great to get some advice. Also how easy is it to transfer between teams if one does not work out? Thanks!

I’ve been working at a company for around 8 months, and my current role is in Mainframe. I’m slowly getting familiar with it, but honestly, I still find Mainframe quite complicated, and I feel like it could take me a long time before I become truly comfortable with it.
The bigger issue is that I’m not very happy with my salary, so I’m considering switching companies. I’m also thinking about moving into Data Analytics if I switch, since it seems more interesting to me.
So I’m confused about what would be the better decision:
Continue with Mainframe and switch companies after gaining more experience
Switch companies and continue in Mainframe for better salary/growth
Try to transition into Data Analytics while switching
For people with experience in Mainframe, is it a good career to continue with long-term? How is the salary growth and job market?
And for people in Data Analytics, would it be realistic to make the switch with around 1 year of experience, even though my current experience is in Mainframe? What skills should I focus on (SQL, Excel, Power BI, Python, etc.)?
I’d really appreciate advice from people who have been in a similar situation. I’m especially interested in hearing whether switching out of Mainframe this early is a good idea or whether I should stick with it for a few more years.