WANTED
for honest work on
COBOL & the Mainframe
★ ★ ★
Scott Baker: IBM i administrator at Cognizant, 12 years in security and compliance, and a COBOL fan since the '80s. Remote from Phoenix, Arizona.
The story
I grew up on '80s bulletin boards and Prodigy, and I've liked COBOL ever since: plain, careful code that keeps running for decades. At Cognizant I administered the IBM i (AS/400) systems for the TJ Maxx / HomeGoods account, which ran COBOL and RPG business applications around the clock. After 12 years in security and compliance, I'm moving into the work I always wanted: developing COBOL on IBM Z.
Big Iron Bank
A small but complete core banking system in COBOL and JCL, running on an emulated IBM System/370 (MVS 3.8j), with a modernization piece on real IBM Z. Every night the End-of-Day batch cycle posts the day's transactions, accrues interest, charges fees, and proves the books balance.
JOB BIBEOD End-of-Day cycle STEP PROGRAM RC NOTE EDIT010 BIBEDIT 0000 bad records to TRANREJ, no S0C7 SORT020 SORT 0000 by account, then time POST030 BIBPOST 0000 VSAM update + GL + audit log INT040 BIBINT 0000 daily accrual, COMP-3 FEE050 BIBFEE 0000 maintenance + overdraft RECN060 BIBRECN 0000 BOOKS BALANCE
The target output. The capstone is being built in the open, phase by phase: see the plan and progress.
Why the name: "big iron" is old slang for the mainframe, and Big Iron is Marty Robbins' 1959 ballad of an Arizona ranger.
Where I can help
COBOL & JCL
Batch programs, VSAM, DB2, SORT, restartable job streams.
Production
Abend triage, reruns and restarts, runbooks, on-call discipline.
Compliance
RACF-style access control, audit trails, PCI DSS and SOX thinking.