Looking back, I can still vividly remember the year when I graduated from college with a degree of Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. It was 2008.
Coming from university, I was quite confident in the skills and exposure that I acquired. PHP with MySQL and VB.Net were some of the programming languages and technologies that I marketed myself with when I started applying for a job. Months after my graduation, I can say that I was one of the lucky guys who landed a job immediately, given the global economy condition at that time wherein some of the companies were experiencing a recession.
Accenture, a multinational company in the Philippines, gave me the opportunity and hired me as an Associate Software Engineer. It was my first stepping stone into the corporate world. I joined the company boot camp, and that was when I first heard of COBOL. During this time, I didn’t even know about the real use case of an existing software or system powered by COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) programming language.
Coming out from boot camp after months of extensive training using Mainframe and COBOL technologies, I was assigned to an international client. During my deployment with the client, I started to realize how powerful the COBOL programming language is. I was eager to deepen my knowledge and capability about COBOL.
What’s Great About COBOL
With its simple, straightforward, and structured way of coding, it makes systems work.
Compared to other programming languages, COBOL is easy, yet some of the most complex and reliable banking systems are written using it. It can be compiled and executed on a variety of computers, and the coding syntax uses English words and phrases, which makes it more handy when formulating business logic.
“Compared to other programming languages, COBOL is easy, yet some of the most complex and reliable banking systems are written using it.”
The COBOL programming language has existed for more than 60 years. Several versions and upgrades have been implemented to continuously optimize it and make it faster when processing different complex business logic. I have learned that most of the major financial services industries, such as banks and insurance, use a system that runs using the Mainframe and COBOL technologies.
A COBOL Career Today
My 16+ years of experience as a Mainframe/COBOL developer continue to make a big impact on my relevancy in the job market. I landed in a few companies with a variety of responsibilities. I’m very grateful that I’ve been exposed in the legacy system which I believe is a still lucrative career experience nowadays.
“Although modernization is on the way, having knowledge in COBOL still [gives you] an edge which can make the difference.”
For the new graduates who want to explore the world of IT, I would not hesitate to recommend learning about to legacy systems that use COBOL programming language. Although modernization is on the way – where some of the system’s workload is migrated into a newer technologies like cloud computing and other on-premise hosted system using newer programming languages–having knowledge in COBOL still has an edge which can make the difference.
Having a strong foundation of a specific programming language like COBOL will make it easier to learn other programming languages. I’m also a firm believer that if you like what you’re doing and consistently strive for excellence, there’s no doubt that success will follow.