job climate s/w engineers with COBOL in the dublin area?

thirtypence

lads, just wondering if anyone could tell me what the job climate is like for software engineers with COBOL in the dublin area? many jobs around or not in the currect climate? have 8 years experience and thinking of moving home

cronos

Dont know much about COBOL, but as the banks here are in trouble at the moment and COBOL is mostly used by banks, I would have to say times are hard for Irish COBOL programmers. Plus the older COBOL people wont want to retire as quickly id imagine cause of the hit there pensions would have taken recently.

Best to find a recruitment agency. Drop me a pm and I can give you one of my friends email address.

DublinWriter

thirtypence wrote: »

lads, just wondering if anyone could tell me what the job climate is like for software engineers with COBOL in the dublin area? many jobs around or not in the currect climate? have 8 years experience and thinking of moving home

Grim. Very grim.

I don't know of any Cobol 'shops' left around anymore. Even if you could land a job, you'd end up maintaining legacy systems.

Farls

DublinWriter wrote: »

Grim. Very grim.

I don't know of any Cobol 'shops' left around anymore. Even if you could land a job, you'd end up maintaining legacy systems.

I don't know any COBOL dev's doing anything else than maintenance in the country and I know quite a few!!

Few options...

Companies actively hiring the past month or so would be

Sun Life down in Wicklow so not too far away and Pramerica Systems Ireland up in Donegal...so a right little trek there!

You probably don't just use COBOL...try looking for work using RPG, JCL, DB2 etc...basically anything mainframe wise...broaden your skills and broaden your horizons!!

It's not ALL doom and gloom...I'm getting increasingly sick of this attitude, yes times are hard etc but its all in proportion!!

padair

thirtypence wrote: »

lads, just wondering if anyone could tell me what the job climate is like for software engineers with COBOL in the dublin area? many jobs around or not in the currect climate? have 8 years experience and thinking of moving home

I think the Cobol market is very good in Dublin. There are quite a few places that use cobol.

1. Accenture
2. Aib
3. BOI
4. PTSB
5. AXA
6. Revenue

These are just a few. Have a search using any of hte following key words and you should get a few hits.
COBOL,JCL,DB2,IMS,

Himmm.. only one adverts on Monster.
http://jobsearch.monster.ie/Search.aspx?q=cobol&cy=ie&where=Dublin%2C%20Dublin&qlt=1433330&qln=1737511&rad=20&rad_units=mi&lid=955&re=130

Eolas..
11 jobs..
http://www.eolas.ie/search.php

I found that there are some agencies that only deal with certain companies. AIB for example.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know.
P.

mountainyman

COBOL is a great skill. There will always be a need for COBOL developers and all the systems are mission critical. Every bank. Every Insurance Company. The revenue.

everyone needs COBOL.

Thumpette

I was working in recruitment a short time ago and I had one job on for a Cobol developer. I had literally dozens of applications- all with the exact skillset. The job went on hold so I let them all know and not one of them had managed to get another job that I know of.

Dont think its a great area at the mo as far as i know.

DublinWriter

mountainyman wrote: »

COBOL is a great skill. There will always be a need for COBOL developers and all the systems are mission critical. Every bank. Every Insurance Company. The revenue.

everyone needs COBOL.

In the words of Eamonn Dunphy, it's not a great skill, it's a good skill.

More importantly in I.T. terms, it's legacy technology only applicable to applications in a deep-maintenance cycle. No new projects are ever designed in Cobol.

Nolanger

Bet when we're all dead COBOL programs will still need maintenance.

irishguy

padair wrote: »

I think the Cobol market is very good in Dublin. There are quite a few places that use cobol.

1. Accenture
2. Aib
3. BOI
4. PTSB
5. AXA
6. Revenue

These are just a few. Have a search using any of hte following key words and you should get a few hits.
COBOL,JCL,DB2,IMS,

Himmm.. only one adverts on Monster.
http://jobsearch.monster.ie/Search.aspx?q=cobol&cy=ie&where=Dublin%2C%20Dublin&qlt=1433330&qln=1737511&rad=20&rad_units=mi&lid=955&re=130

Eolas..
11 jobs..
http://www.eolas.ie/search.php

I found that there are some agencies that only deal with certain companies. AIB for example.

Hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know.
P.

2,3,4 and 6 have a hiring freeze in place and 1 is leaving people go. Id say it is very hard to get a COBOL position in Ireland at the moment. Everything is moving towards OO. Most of AIB's COBOL/PL1 code base will be gone in under 5years. I am sure the others will be going the same way. Id say try and get some sort of OO experience first, that with your mainframe skills would be very attractive to an employer esp the banks (in a few years when they can hire people again)

thirtypence

any pick up at all in cobol jobs in dublin area at moment? have 10 years experience, fiance works in dublin now so might start looking for cobol job there, if there are any!

the_syco

irishguy wrote: »

Everything is moving towards OO.

What is "OO"?

hobochris

the_syco wrote: »

What is "OO"?

If your a software developer I hope that was a joke!

otherwise:

OO= Object Orientated

its probably the most common programming language structure,most modern programming languages are based on it at the moment.

mrpink6789

Cobol - not great at the moment to be honest. A couple of things floating around with some of the banks but competition is fierce so rates and salaries have come down a huge amount.

the_syco

hobochris wrote: »

If your a software developer I hope that was a joke!

Nope, just a tech monkey who finds knowing the lingo helps when trying to figure out wtf the user broke this time :P

AARRRGH

Any use?

Life 400 Developer

CLOAS Programmer - 12 Mth DAY RATE CONTRACTS

BostonB

Nolanger wrote: »

Bet when we're all dead COBOL programs will still need maintenance.

Anywhere I've seen cobol they've been slowly replacing it with new apps in other languages. The maintenance is slowly descreasing as a result.

irishguy

BostonB wrote: »

Anywhere I've seen cobol they've been slowly replacing it with new apps in other languages. The maintenance is slowly descreasing as a result.

They are, but Cobol still holds the title of the programming language with the most lines of code. So there will be work for quite a while. If you learn the legacy mainframe technologies and also know about modern technologies you will be very employable. I havent met that many people who are experts on both and lots of employers are looking for that.

ifah

irishguy wrote: »

They are, but Cobol still holds the title of the programming language with the most lines of code. So there will be work for quite a while. If you learn the legacy mainframe technologies and also know about modern technologies you will be very employable. I havent met that many people who are experts on both and lots of employers are looking for that.

thats because you need about 30 lines of code just to print hello world !!