AI-driven development tools have arrived on the mainframe. They analyze existing code, support refactoring efforts, structure decades-old applications, and promise productivity gains that many organizations urgently need. For CIOs, the key question is no longer...
Mainframe careers aren’t disappearing. They’re narrowing, deepening, and becoming more demanding. If you spend any time in tech conversations, you’ve heard the claim that mainframe careers are fading, the talent pool is aging, and the jobs tied to IBM Z won’t survive....
Attendees at GS UK 2025 noticed a new track, WAVEZ 101, dedicated to early-career and undergraduate mainframers. I was delighted to be invited to speak on mainframe skills and what I see for the industry’s future employees. A Gloomy Skills Outlook The IT skills topic...
Mainframe careers rarely follow a script. Rather, they grow through curiosity, mentorship, and a willingness to keep learning. This trifecta is especially necessary as tools, platforms, and expectations evolve. Planet Mainframe caught up with Chris Muncan, Lead DB2...
From Mainframe to Cybersecurity: Experience Is the New Superpower If you’ve written COBOL, debugged Assembler, or know how to resolve an S0C7 abend, chances are you belong to an older—and increasingly rare—demographic in tech. If you’re a woman, that group is even...
Mainframe Talent Is Growing: Access It Next Month Hopefully, you caught my 2024 Planet Mainframe piece on the growing mainframe curriculum at Northern Illinois University (NIU), Illinois State University (ISU), and Eastern Illinois University (EIU). Great news: it’s...
Conversation with IBM’s Meredith Stowell: IBM Mainframe Skills Council At this week’s SHARE conference in Orlando, IBM announced the launch of the Mainframe Skills Council— “a forum where global organizations will foster a skilled, diverse, sustainable workforce...
IBM Z mainframes are the core computing platforms of 92 of the world’s top 100 banks, 10 of the top 10 insurers, 18 of the top 25 retailers, 70% of the Fortune 500 and much of the world’s healthcare, finance, utilities, and governments. These ultimate data servers...
