Job Description & Details
This is a heavy-duty legacy modernization and maintenance role where you'll be knee-deep in core backend business logic. If you know your way around traditional systems and can seamlessly blend COBOL and DB2 with modern Agile workflows, this gig keeps critical enterprise machinery humming.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
You'll spend your days writing and modifying COBOL programs, creating new DB2 tables, and managing VSAM files to handle shifting business requirements. A huge part of the gig involves writing meticulous impact analysis documentation before touching production code. You will troubleshoot pesky runtime bugs, optimize data retrieval, and handle version control deployments using Changeman while keeping pace with Agile sprints.
The Core Tech Stack
COBOL, DB2, and VSAM form the holy trinity here, and you cannot fake your way through them. The team desperately needs someone who has mastered Changeman for version control and knows how to write efficient SQL queries alongside traditional file structures. If you don't instinctively know how to trace data flow through legacy batch jobs and online screens, you're going to struggle out of the gate.
Interview Expectations
Expect the hiring manager to hand you a messy scenario involving a slow-running batch job and ask you to walk through your exact optimization steps for DB2 indexing and COBOL logic. They want to see if you can methodically troubleshoot under pressure rather than just guessing. They'll also probe deep into your past impact analysis documentation to see how thoroughly you evaluate downstream dependencies before modifying shared copybooks or VSAM files.
Application Advice
Skip the generic IT jargon and put your exact years of COBOL, DB2, and VSAM experience front and center on your resume. Make sure keywords like Changeman, impact analysis, and Agile are explicitly visible since the ATS is definitely scanning for them. Highlight a specific time you untangled a gnarly legacy codebase without breaking production, as that's the exact problem this team is trying to solve.