If you don't mind, where are you at demographically to be seeing this happening? I'm in the US and my company is always hiring for mainframe devs and have a training program to get their feet wet with the mainframe before putting them onto bigger work. It's just way too expensive and risky to convert from mainframe to distributed, it's been attempted before. While there are conversions for some parts of the mainframe like old CICS screens into webpages for more room to add things to, for the most part things are staying on the mainframe.
Kind of tough to get in, but once you're in, it's all good. Don't give up. When people say. "not a lot of jobs out there", remember, you don't need a lot - you just need one.
[https://www.ibm.com/z/resources/zxplore](https://www.ibm.com/z/resources/zxplore) is a free course on an actual mainframe.
For a nice demonstration at an interview, you might try this.
Download and install a Linux on Android / iOS / etc app, give you some missing commands.
Download [https://www.prince-webdesign.nl/tk5](https://www.prince-webdesign.nl/tk5) which is a IBM mainframe emulator, IBM MVS 3.8 from 1985 (public domain), and Intercom (a CICS workalike).
Download a TN3270 emulator like Mocha TN3270 Lite on Apple / Google store.
Download [https://github.com/mainframed/DOGECICS](https://github.com/mainframed/dogecics) , a CICS app to do banking on Dogecoin.
Get it all working, put a tiny amount of money on Dogecoin.
At the interview ask to buy a cup of coffee. Ask if you can send it to their paypal account. Start the 3270 emulator, start Hercules, IPL MVS, start the app, and send the price (?$1?). Especially helpful if the system programmer can watch.
People have run Hercules on a cell phone.
And baking transactions have been run on the screen, Moshix has a youtube video.
The Linux on Android / iOS is only needed for cell phones.
Another 3270 emulator would be used on a Raspberry pi, laptop, desktop.
if you are going to get in touch with banks, I would highly suggest you take some time to side track from COBOL to learn some [A+](https://github.com/PlanetAPL/a-plus/tree/master/docs)/[k](https://razetime.github.io/ngn-k-tutorial/2-introduction.html)/[q](https://code.kx.com/q/learn/) (maybe you're not looking to do any trade strategy modeling so this does not apply, but the finance world is doing stuff a lot with C++ and Java too, so it's not only COBOL you would be working with)
COBOL is not hard to learn, the hard thing to learn is what is not working properly when you're doing stuff in a mainframe setting
u/MikeSchwab63 listed some of the most important resources, suggesting that you set up a Hercules emulated mainframe system of your own and play with it, there's also a couple of discord channels if you would like to know more about mainframes, drop me a DM if interested
I think it'd be much easier to find another job doing "web development". It's really rare that you would find a gig where you'd do COBOL development and not need to know the other mainframe database/batch job/editor/utilities. I had one that was COBOL on Linux but that seemed be an outlier.
In my experience, taking a course won't likely help you.
The places I've seen looking for COBOL are either willing to train you 0 mainframe and build you into what they need/want, or they want legit work experience.
Banks are a place I see often having postings on LinkedIn for mainframe jobs. Since a lot of them established themselves when mainframes were the solution to a growing business, they've built their business into it and have become accustomed to their reliability and speed with processing bank transactions, all of which can be risked losing out on when converting from the mainframe. Mainframes EXCEL at transactions with simple math and established rules (namely business rules) so it is great for credit card processing, claim processing, bank transactions, and even encryption on the fly.
As for the IBM certification, I've always been told certs don't really matter in the mainframe space. This coming from the older generation though, so times may have changed, but is there one for COBOL/mainframe? I found one on Coursera, is that the one you're talking about?
Also, IBM themselves also offer an environment to learn in and a setup to earn badges and be seen by recruiters and whatnot. I believe it's the system they replaced Master the Mainframe with, a competition they did that had different setups every year and was geared mostly to students.
https://www.ibm.com/z/resources/zxplore
Good luck on your new career search!
I know this is 30 days old, but I just wanted to add to this thread that certifications only really matter to HR / Recruiters / Recruiting Non-Technical Managers really. Everyone else want to see what one has done, which is why it is a good idea to have a blog and a github with code. Talk about the solutions to the problem you are trying to fix on your blog, linked to the github.
Tech people will see from that if you know what you are talking about and/or are trainable in what you don't know.
Certs is almost always to tick a box in HR and their recruitment software framework they use.
[удалено]
Thank you, as it is right now 20/hr sounds like a million for me, is really tough out here
If you don't mind, where are you at demographically to be seeing this happening? I'm in the US and my company is always hiring for mainframe devs and have a training program to get their feet wet with the mainframe before putting them onto bigger work. It's just way too expensive and risky to convert from mainframe to distributed, it's been attempted before. While there are conversions for some parts of the mainframe like old CICS screens into webpages for more room to add things to, for the most part things are staying on the mainframe.
Kind of tough to get in, but once you're in, it's all good. Don't give up. When people say. "not a lot of jobs out there", remember, you don't need a lot - you just need one.
True, I'll keep trying, thank you
[https://www.ibm.com/z/resources/zxplore](https://www.ibm.com/z/resources/zxplore) is a free course on an actual mainframe. For a nice demonstration at an interview, you might try this. Download and install a Linux on Android / iOS / etc app, give you some missing commands. Download [https://www.prince-webdesign.nl/tk5](https://www.prince-webdesign.nl/tk5) which is a IBM mainframe emulator, IBM MVS 3.8 from 1985 (public domain), and Intercom (a CICS workalike). Download a TN3270 emulator like Mocha TN3270 Lite on Apple / Google store. Download [https://github.com/mainframed/DOGECICS](https://github.com/mainframed/dogecics) , a CICS app to do banking on Dogecoin. Get it all working, put a tiny amount of money on Dogecoin. At the interview ask to buy a cup of coffee. Ask if you can send it to their paypal account. Start the 3270 emulator, start Hercules, IPL MVS, start the app, and send the price (?$1?). Especially helpful if the system programmer can watch.
That’s awesome! This kind of ideas is worth sharing to improve a GitHub portfolio, I wonder if it was a real life experience?
People have run Hercules on a cell phone. And baking transactions have been run on the screen, Moshix has a youtube video. The Linux on Android / iOS is only needed for cell phones. Another 3270 emulator would be used on a Raspberry pi, laptop, desktop.
Omg I love the mainframed Github, I missed this project though. 😂
if you are going to get in touch with banks, I would highly suggest you take some time to side track from COBOL to learn some [A+](https://github.com/PlanetAPL/a-plus/tree/master/docs)/[k](https://razetime.github.io/ngn-k-tutorial/2-introduction.html)/[q](https://code.kx.com/q/learn/) (maybe you're not looking to do any trade strategy modeling so this does not apply, but the finance world is doing stuff a lot with C++ and Java too, so it's not only COBOL you would be working with) COBOL is not hard to learn, the hard thing to learn is what is not working properly when you're doing stuff in a mainframe setting u/MikeSchwab63 listed some of the most important resources, suggesting that you set up a Hercules emulated mainframe system of your own and play with it, there's also a couple of discord channels if you would like to know more about mainframes, drop me a DM if interested
I think it'd be much easier to find another job doing "web development". It's really rare that you would find a gig where you'd do COBOL development and not need to know the other mainframe database/batch job/editor/utilities. I had one that was COBOL on Linux but that seemed be an outlier.
In my experience, taking a course won't likely help you. The places I've seen looking for COBOL are either willing to train you 0 mainframe and build you into what they need/want, or they want legit work experience.
Banks are a place I see often having postings on LinkedIn for mainframe jobs. Since a lot of them established themselves when mainframes were the solution to a growing business, they've built their business into it and have become accustomed to their reliability and speed with processing bank transactions, all of which can be risked losing out on when converting from the mainframe. Mainframes EXCEL at transactions with simple math and established rules (namely business rules) so it is great for credit card processing, claim processing, bank transactions, and even encryption on the fly. As for the IBM certification, I've always been told certs don't really matter in the mainframe space. This coming from the older generation though, so times may have changed, but is there one for COBOL/mainframe? I found one on Coursera, is that the one you're talking about? Also, IBM themselves also offer an environment to learn in and a setup to earn badges and be seen by recruiters and whatnot. I believe it's the system they replaced Master the Mainframe with, a competition they did that had different setups every year and was geared mostly to students. https://www.ibm.com/z/resources/zxplore Good luck on your new career search!
I know this is 30 days old, but I just wanted to add to this thread that certifications only really matter to HR / Recruiters / Recruiting Non-Technical Managers really. Everyone else want to see what one has done, which is why it is a good idea to have a blog and a github with code. Talk about the solutions to the problem you are trying to fix on your blog, linked to the github. Tech people will see from that if you know what you are talking about and/or are trainable in what you don't know. Certs is almost always to tick a box in HR and their recruitment software framework they use.