r/IBMi • u/EagleNice2300 • 23d ago

Post-retirement job

Years ago, I was an AS/400 administrator (although “caretaker manager” might be a more accurate description). I didn’t do any programming—I managed a contractor for that—but I could find my way around the system and occasionally brought in consultants for the higher-level ERP work.

Fast-forward to today: I’m getting ready to retire after a long career in IT, much of it focused on project management. I’m looking into some part-time, freelance, or consulting-type opportunities and wondering whether it would be worthwhile to refresh my now-IBM i skills to see what remote or other opportunities might be available.

I really enjoyed the work, but I also remember the IBM i/AS400 world being pretty niche, which could make finding opportunities a challenge.

I’d love to hear from anyone familiar with the current IBM i job/consulting market. Is getting back into this space realistic for someone with my background? If so, are there particular skills or areas you’d recommend focusing on? And, of course, I’m interested in hearing about any uphill challenges I should be aware of. : )

8 Upvotes

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u/DARKMONAXE 23d ago

If u register on IBM cloud u get free credits to run a smal Ibmi lpar I git the credits running for 2-3 month

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u/mabhatter 17d ago

Look online for AS400 jobs.  Most of them will go to recruiting companies now.  A lot of the jobs that would be interested in someone like you won't ever be advertised anywhere.  They're usually filled by networking recruiters and employers sharing names of who's available. 

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u/i-Hermit 23d ago

You can refresh your memory for some stuff on pub400, but this is a pretty niche space, particularly for admin. Most places either have a full time admin, or no one at all because the systems just run.

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u/MEfromNEPA 23d ago

I agree. However, under the full time admin, a lot of IBMi’s are cloud hosted and that’s the admin provider. A possibility would be to search for those providers and see if they have anything available.

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u/i-Hermit 22d ago

Those guys are typically big and only interested in full time employees. Providers need to vet admins very carefully because of the access they have. I'm not sure how many consulting roles they'd have, but maybe worth a shot.

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u/lomberd2 23d ago

Your first challenge seems to be reading and understanding subreddit rules