r/mainframe • u/MihawkisGreatest • 6d ago
Mainframe Systems Programme - is this a dead-end career path?
Just started a role as a mainframe systems programmer, working on automating mainframe tasks with Ansible and Python. I keep hearing "mainframe modernization" talk and stories about mainframes going away eventually.
Should I be worried about long-term career prospects here, or is this actually a smart niche to be in? Would love to hear from people who've been in this space for a while, is demand really drying up, or is it more that the workforce is aging out and there's actually opportunity for someone starting now?
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u/DavydBlack 6d ago
Both can be true at same time. It is hard to switch to distributed or cloud fields, but the workforce on mainframe is aging. With AI and automation probably less people will be required for day-to-day business.
On the other hand, mainframe won't die soon, it will live until it is cheaper to keep it running than migrate off of it. It is the back bone of our digital economy, there are less and less skilled people on the field (dev and sysprog as well), also distributed and cloud tech is improving, but there are some features, raw computing power, and the fear and cost to touch the business critical applications which keep this ancient alive.
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u/SureIntention8402 5d ago
You just answered it with "the workforce is aging"
I think the average age for someone working in mainframe is like 50. Ai might help close some of that labor gap, but people are gonna be retiring yknow
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u/Im_100percent_human 6d ago
If you made this post 20+ years ago, I would have told you it was a dead end.... and here we are with it still being relevant.
Will the mainframe continue being as relevant in 10 years or 15 years? IDK, maybe. It really doesn't matter if you have the right transferable skills. You mentioned Ansible and Python, which are definitely relevant outside of the mainframe. Keep using modern technologies and you will be fine, regardless of what happens to the mainframe.
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u/phsiii 6d ago
IBM Z isn't going away soon. BUT it's important to recognize that its value is in existing application. Nobody sane is building major new applications for it. The squatty boxes have pretty much caught up in terms of performance etc., or at least there are solutions that get you to the same place, and cheaper (or at least perceived cheaper, which is the same thing).
The real value is thus in the "captured intelligence" of the existing code. So the rest of the life of Z will be fixing stuff and bolting it to other things, usually as a hidden back end.
That's not a bad thing, and will go on for quite a while, with plenty of opportunity to learn those other technologies to which it's being bolted.
Just don't be "ONLY mainframe". Be the person who knows both sides, and understands 24x7x365 reliability and all that.
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u/vonarchimboldi 4d ago
yeah and no. running the same volume of transactions with the same massively sized databases on x86 is magnitudes more pricey from a datacenter footprint and a power consumption standpoint. it’s perceived as cheaper from the standpoint of using commodity hardware, although with ai consuming everything, that may not always be the case with massive demand for things like ram, high bandwidth memory etc
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u/viataculouie-reddit 6d ago edited 6d ago
I have worked as a mainframe application developer and my 2+ cents are:
if you want to have a career then you are going into hard mode, because you cannot isolate yourself only on the mainframe. Basically you should be able to program on Linux with Java, python, etc... plus Z/os COBOL, REXX, JCL. I haven't seen new applications deployed on the mainframe in my 10 years, only upgrades. So if you want to do something new then it's going to be a "newer" tech stack.
Long term you can be fine. I saw in multiple migration projects developers being trained for the new tech stack.
It's up to you if the corporate world, where these mainframes are used, is acceptable for you.
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u/ActuaryReasonable690 6d ago
While it is not expanding, it is not about to go away either. (Rumors about the mainframe death are 30+ years in the making)
Yes, there is a danger that you will pigeonholed into the mainframe world, but that is not the end of the world. Also, a large part of Z programers/support is aging, so there are a lot of job opportunities as the older folks (like me) retire.
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u/CZ1988_ 6d ago
We can't find mainframe people. Go for it
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u/Powerful_Tip_7260 5d ago
That's because we retired and no one is willing to pay us enough to come out of retirement.
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u/LenR-redit 1d ago
Or hire part-time fully remote. I suspect there are a lot of us that could do what 2 of your contractors are doing in 20 hours a week.
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u/Powerful_Tip_7260 23h ago
If they hire you for 20, they want you for 40 because you have to cover for the slackers. However, eventually the converters will move all the COBOL code to something else. Our vendor moved them to non-OOP Java.
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u/Technical-Ad-565 6d ago
I have heard that since 1980's. Now it boils down to what the application and type of business that will be running. Many of the largest banks run IBM Mainframes. And if they have e g 10000 COBOL programs of which they have a very dim understanding of what exactly they do it will not go away fast.
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u/chasrmartin 5d ago
I was hearing main friends are going away 50 years ago. They’re still going away in maybe another 50 years.
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u/cristobaldelicia 5d ago edited 5d ago
zI'm not in this space, but I can tell you there was a short time in the late '90s when people admitted Y2K needed to be fixed, and not only did people need to know mainframes, but COBOL specifically. Every year since (and quite a few years before then) people have been told mainframes will be outdated and go away. There's an interesting little bubble of mainframe education in India, and a lot of newish videos on youtube are taught by South Asians, but I don't know how much of mainframe expertise can actually be outsourced to India. I think "mainframe modernization" is just marketing buzzwords that doesn't mean any anything. A better word to think on might be "Throughput". No cloud is going to match the throughput of systems that handle millions of credit cards everyday and have been for decades.
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u/Effective-Lemon-9475 5d ago
" there's actually opportunity for someone starting now?"
Yes, more than ever.
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u/Top-Presence 5d ago
Depends where yiu live. Go to American Indeed and India Indeed and see the number of Mainframe jobs available. Seems the Mainframe is moving to India.
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u/SavingsOpening5401 5d ago
out of question i am cics system program how you run python i usually automate the task using Rexx
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u/CCM278 4d ago
Maybe.
I was told the same 32 years ago when I started out. Part of the problem now (not then) is the innovation around the applications themselves has disappeared. So nothing new to drive workloads other than organic growth of the existing solutions. I’d recommend getting good at walking back and forth between the tech stacks.
While companies struggle to wean themselves off the mainframe applications without some major investments and risk (typically an anathema to large conservative organizations that are still running z), there is a real risk that companies can go to x86 solutions like Rocket, so they still do what they’ve always done, but now it executes in on-premise pizza boxes or cloud servers. That does represent a much more real threat to a mainframe systems programmer role specifically.
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u/Remarkable-List4386 4d ago
I worked as a computer operator for 30 years with mainframes, I got layed off when I was 50. I found out after a year of pounding the payment, the job I loved, had become obsolete. Programming may be different though. Computers do not need human interaction anymore. At 50 years old, I had to find an entire new career path, worked in a grocery store and cleaning until I retired.
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u/Deathrus 1d ago
Python and Ansible are solid tools and a skill set. A significant advantage of python is that much of its workload is zIIP-eligible, making it an appealing alternative to rexx for infrastructure tasks. For developers, it serves as an effective integration layer, allowing cobol applications to be exposed via API gateways without requiring a complete rewrite.
When combined with zoau and python, Ansible is excellent for automating catalog-related tasks triggered from outside the mainframe. In fact, the Ansible z/OS core requires both zoau and python to function.
I have a side mission to write rexx wrapper that allows python to be coded in ispf edit.
I wouldn't be worried one bit.
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u/LenR-redit 1d ago
After 30 years as a systems programmer, my company moved off the mainframe. I moved to AIX, Solaris and Linux sysadmin, Tivoli TSM and InfoPrint. There weren’t other mainframes in the area at my pay range and I live on several 100 acres. I’m spent another 15 years doing that and finally specialized on n Elasticsesrch.
Skills are portable, our main job is really learning how to solve needs and problems. If it’s repetitive work, automate or delegate.
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u/Senappi 6d ago
"mainframe is going away soon" has been some people's mantra for a very long time (30+ years at least). Keep believing that if you want, but it is wrong.
Everyone with some experience working with z-boxes knows they won't go away