11–20 of 163 posts
That may be a bigger obstacle to people getting in that area. You can make money in non-corrupt companies where your career won't get stuck.
Anecdotal but representative I believe. Mainframes are costs centers, always will be. And the target of cost cutting. Millenials aren’t dumb!
Fear of not keeping up with the Technical Joneses is a huge influence in our industry because everyone sees "old" programmers booted first when a company or the economy sours. Nobody wants to be That Guy (or Gal). If mainframes are perceived as a shrinking or outmoded technology, obsolescence fear kicks in and people avoid it. It may need some clever marketing to trick people into giving up that fear or impression. B…
Dunno, I'm a millennial (didn't even know I was part of that group till recently, gotta love being profiled by things I cannot control) and all it took me to like Mainframes (although I don't work with them) was hearing an older developer tell me all about them and their capabilities. I'm a total computer nerd aside from a programmer so I love learning about tech old, new and upcoming.
My recommendations: - Give lots of young people the opportunity to learn the necessary mainframe skills (ideally by themselves). Lots of today's great programmers learned their programming skills on their own. This is very hard to do for mainframes because of access to them. - Pay really good salaries and advertise it. Money nearly always has a huge attractive force.
Bingo. I work in an AS/400 shop. I simply can't invest myself personally in the work because I know my access to that environment is predicated on working for this particular company.
I can hone my Linux skills and even my Windows Server skills any time. I can bring it home. I can use it myself. I can own it.
I can't do that with the AS/400. Just spinning up a "virtual machine" in the office to play around on is a licensing mess, and there's no "cloud" where I can rent one for a reasonable fee (that I've found). I have no sandbox.
Since my continued access to that environment isn't guaranteed or even convenient, I don't really want to dive in. And if I don't want to dive in then learning about it at all feels like a waste of time. Which then means I end up learning the absolute minimum before moving back to familiar territory.
Maybe I am prejudiced but I have the feeling that mainframes get sold to shops with a lot of money based on the salesman's skills and, well, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a kickback here and there, to oil the old engine. Not because they are the best tech. That may be a bigger obstacle to people getting in that area. You can make money in non-corrupt companies where your career won't get stuck.
https://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/118484/mainframes...
It's a proposed Stack Exchange website dedicated to mainframes. It is in commitment phase, which means people need to come up and commit to support the site - with questions, answers, moderation, comments - in numbers sufficient to ensure its viability.
Mainframe skills shortage is a complete fabrication, it simply doesn’t exist. In June of this year a local company laid off 850 people, a company with a large mainframe installation (SS&C formerly DST Systems). Hundreds were mainframe programmers. This is after a decade offshoring. There are thousands of former mainframers here. And this is just in Kansas City, Mo. Anecdotal but representative I believe. Mainframes a…
1) You mentioned layoffs, but you didn't mention how long it took those people to find new jobs.
2) For those who couldn't find new jobs, how many of them avoided interviews or job offers because they were unwilling to relocate?
3) How transferable are "mainframe" skills to other "mainframe" installations? (As a non-mainframe-programmer, I have no idea how much one's skillset is peculiar to a specific mainframe vendor, mainframe OS version, etc.)
4) I get the impression that long-term mainframe developers actually have two parallel skillsets: (a) technical skills related to mainframe work in general, and (b) skills related to their particular installation's line-of-business and specific applications. For laid-off employees who couldn't find work, is it possible that their (b)-style skillsets were just not marketable to many other employers?
Mainframe skills shortage is a complete fabrication, it simply doesn’t exist. In June of this year a local company laid off 850 people, a company with a large mainframe installation (SS&C formerly DST Systems). Hundreds were mainframe programmers. This is after a decade offshoring. There are thousands of former mainframers here. And this is just in Kansas City, Mo. Anecdotal but representative I believe. Mainframes a…
I'm not sure if your argument supports your conclusion: 1) You mentioned layoffs, but you didn't mention how long it took those people to find new jobs. 2) For those who couldn't find new jobs, how many of them avoided interviews or job offers because they were unwilling to relocate? 3) How transferable are "mainframe" skills to other "mainframe" installations? (As a non-mainframe-programmer, I have no idea how much…
Anecdotal, but I found it interesting to watch the portability of experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IBM runs a student competition to try get people into it: https://masterthemainframe.com/
Is there something similar available if you are no student?