Senior Cobol Developer

Overview

We are seeking an experienced Senior COBOL Developer to join a high-impact engagement supporting critical mainframe systems for one of our enterprise or government clients.

The ideal candidate brings deep mainframe expertise, strong analytical thinking, and a collaborative mindset to design, develop, and maintain mission-critical batch and online COBOL applications.

Must Have

COBOL (IBM z/OS), JCL & Batch Processing, CICS, DB2/IMS/VSAM, ISPF/TSO/SDSF & Mainframe Debugging (Xpediter/File-AID), SDLC & Production Support.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and maintain COBOL programs for batch and online mainframe environments.
• Analyse business and technical requirements to build efficient, maintainable code solutions.
• Perform enhancements, bug fixes, and performance tuning on existing COBOL applications.
• Work with DB2, IMS, or VSAM databases to support data access and manipulation needs.
• Collaborate with business analysts, architects, and QA teams through the full SDLC.
• Participate in code reviews and ensure adherence to coding standards and best practices.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation including design specs, test plans, and run books.
• Support production releases, deployments, and post-release monitoring.
• Work effectively in an Agile or waterfall delivery model as required by the client.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of hands-on COBOL development experience in IBM mainframe environments (z/OS).
• Strong expertise in JCL, CICS, and batch processing.
• Proficiency with at least one of DB2, IMS DB/DC, or VSAM file structures.
• Experience with ISPF/SDSF, TSO/ISPF utilities, and mainframe debugging tools (Xpediter, File-AID, etc.).
• Solid understanding of mainframe performance tuning and memory/storage management.
• Experience in the full software development lifecycle including requirements analysis, design, coding, testing, and deployment.
• Strong problem-solving skills with an ability to independently troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues.
• Excellent communication skills and comfort working in a remote, collaborative team setting during EST business hours.