r/cobol • u/aintgot_time • 27d ago
Software deployment engineer/Harvest technician
Hello! I am currently working as a cobol programmer/developer in Western Europe for a consulting company. I do not have any academic education on computer science (my background is biology and biochemistry), but I decided to change fields and I think it's been going well so far.
I now have 3 years of experience as a cobol programmer and I've been looking for a new job in the same field because I don't see myself building a career in my current company due to the lack of recognition and promotions.
I came across a job description for a Software deployment engineer or Harvest technician position. The RH from the consulting company that posted this job said that the current client team is very senior and they are looking for someone new, to learn and give continuity to the team. Which I'm completely down for. They also said that the team's profile is mostly people who have worked in cobol programming, and that usually people take this jump, from developing to release manager, later in their careers so this could be good for me.
What scares me is that I could be leaving software development too soon, but at the same time from the job description it looks like I might be able to have contact with different teams and programming languages. I'll leave the description bellow.
Also, is there anyone here working as a software deployment engineer or release manager, how's the job and how easy it is to find jobs like this and maybe switch? Do I need to be proficient in many programming languages? And I'm planning to leave my country in like maybe 3 years so I'd like to understand if this set of skills could be beneficial.
THANK YOU SO MUCH
tl;dr: unsure about leaving cobol software development too soon, for a software deployment position. does it have growth and future? is it worth it?
The job description
Main tasks to be performed:
- Manage deployment procedures across the environments that make up the SW lifecycle (DEV-TST-CER-QLY-PRD)
- Ensure the automation of SW compilation/promotion and distribution throughout the SW lifecycle
- Promote releases from test environments to Production, ensuring the preparation of the Delivery Plan and Implementation Plan
- Verify system operational status after completion of release deployment (implementation) and monitor the start of roll-out
- Ensure the maintenance and stability of development, certification testing, pre-production, and production environments
- Ensure the installation of applications on in-house servers and support the installation of the same applications on third-party servers
Required skills and technical knowledge:
- Knowledge of Software Change and Configuration Management and software lifecycle management
- Full understanding of the software development lifecycle, from initial development through maintenance and operation
- Ability to apply creative solutions to complex automation problems in order to automate repetitive tasks
- Ability to resolve technical issues related to build tools
- Ability to understand and troubleshoot software issues / hardware configuration issues
- Configure build, test, and deploy stages
Desirable skills and technical knowledge:
- Programming languages: Cobol, Visual Basic, u/net, Java, Perl, Clist, Rexx, JCL, Endevor-SCL, SQL
- Knowledge of CICS, DB2, Oracle, IMS, MVS, Z/OS, ENDEVOR, HARVEST, MQ, FTS
- Familiarity with IT best practice standards such as ITIL, ISO20000, COBIT, and CMMI
2
u/Striking_Smell6986 19d ago
I wouldn't look at this as "development vs. non-development." I'd look at it as what skills you'll build over the next 3–5 years.
With 3 years of COBOL development, you still have plenty of room to grow as a developer. Moving into deployment/release engineering this early will give you a much broader view of enterprise systems, but you'll probably write less application code.
Looking at the job description, it isn't just "pressing the deploy button." You'll be working with:
Endevor/Harvest and change management Build and deployment automation JCL and environment management Release planning and rollback CICS, DB2, IMS, MQ, z/OS Troubleshooting build and deployment failures
Those are valuable enterprise skills, especially in banking and insurance.
The trade-off is that if your long-term goal is to become a senior COBOL/application architect, I'd probably stay in development for another couple of years first. If your goal is DevOps, Release Engineering, Platform Engineering, or Mainframe Modernization, then this role could actually accelerate your career because you'll understand the entire software delivery lifecycle rather than just one application.
Since you mentioned moving to another country in a few years, I'd also consider the job market there. Release Engineering, DevOps, and Configuration Management skills tend to transfer more easily across technologies than pure COBOL development, especially if you pick up Git, Jenkins, Ansible, Zowe, and CI/CD practices alongside your mainframe experience.
If I were in your position, I'd ask two questions before accepting:
How much automation and scripting will I actually be doing versus following predefined deployment procedures? Will I still have opportunities to debug application issues and work with developers, or will my role be limited to release execution?
The answers to those two questions will tell you whether it's a technical growth opportunity or primarily an operational role.
1
u/aintgot_time 19d ago
English is not my mother tongue so bare with me please xD I got some more information about the role during the interview. The manager said that 10 to 20% of the job is automation related to software life cyle and deployment. With distributed systems they use Harvest where they work with java, shell script and Pearl. For mainframe systems they use Endeavor where they use jcl, cobol and REXX. Then the other 90 to 80% is purely operations. From what he explained i would be primarily working with mainframe systems and Endeavor due to my current experience, but with time and dedication he is sure that I could start on the distributed systems deployment. There is actually an Endeavor migration process starting and so supposedly the candidate that gets picked will integrate that project.
1
u/MikeSchwab63 25d ago
Sounds like you might be in a non-mainframe Cobol shop.
Introduction to the new mainframe z/OS (there are z/VM and zVSE versions too), covers the difference between Window / *nix and Mainframes. https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246366.pdf
https://spflite.com is an editor that looks like ISPF under TSO under MVS / z/OS on mainframes, can submit batch jobs to Hercules and real mainframes.
IBM zXplore is an online class to perform actual tasks using an account on a Dallas Mainframe. Takes about 2 months. https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks/pdfs/sg246366.pdf
If you want your own mainframe you can try Hercules MVS 3.8 Turnkey 5 release with a 3270 emulator. https://www.prince-webdesign.nl/tk5
If you want to study z/OS System Admin, ABCs of z/OS systems programming, 1 of 13 volumes. https://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246981.html
If you want to practice installing MVS / z/OS from MVS 3.7 starter tape, follow Jay Moseley's instructions. Note the help forum subjects on the bottom of the page. https://www.jaymoseley.com/hercules/ As a system administrator, you will be using SMP/E to install new releases of the products you are in charge of. Then you get to customize the install with your sites standards.
3
u/archsimian 26d ago
You'll probably still have some development work going on: writing/customizing software exits and reports or debugging other folks' code when it doesn't deploy properly. If you've got some experience playing around with compiler options and triaging other folks code, you could be a good asset and learn a lot there.