This is James Governor from Redmunk, episode of Redmunk TV. I'm here in New York for the IBM Z Summit and I'm lucky enough to be joined by a couple of guys that are learning mainframe skills. My name is Ben Franchek from Warren University. And I'm Scott Wetter. I'm from Merisch College. What interests me is as someone that's been watching the mainframe market for 13 years now. And when I originally came into the business, I was actually told by my first boss, "The mainframe's dead. So we're giving it to you because you're the junior." It's kind of 13 years later and many billions of dollars of revenue to IBM since. But clearly, there has been somewhat of a renewal. How did you find out about the mainframe? What brought you to the platform? As a student really coming in as a computer science major, there really is no exposure to mainframes. You don't sit in class and they don't brag about it or anything like that. Basically, outside external sources, it starts with the mainframe contest. That's the first time I ever heard about mainframes. Can you say a little bit more about the mainframe contest? Oh, the mainframe contest is awesome. It's open to everybody and it's the easiest thing to get into. You don't have to be a computer science major. I could have been a communications major and jumped into it. It's three parts. The first part, it's very simple. They walk you through. That's kind of cool. You complete it, you get a free t-shirt. Like, you know, what I'm wearing right now. And the t-shirts change every year. I actually got to be on the contest meeting panel with my internship this past summer. And actually, I think the biggest argument was over the next t-shirt design. From there, there's a second part which gets a little bit more difficult and a little bit more competitive. Probably the first 60 to complete it get a prize. After that, you don't. And then the third part, which is very extreme, very difficult, and they don't expect everyone to finish it. Okay. I believe this past contest, a high school student actually was one of the first people to finish and win. It's very interesting that we're hitting the high school level for like a few years. So you've already got the next generation of you, better come to knock you outside, right? Yeah, right? It's a great opportunity. I thought it was pretty cool.
2:00I was pretty excited to get the t-shirt and stuff, and the most beneficial part of it to me as a student was that after I completed part two, I could put my resume up on a student opportunity system, and that's how I got my internship. Okay. So it's like a platform to launch if you complete the second part. Interesting. And for you, is it kind of basically an economic decision, or were there some other things when you begin to find out about the mainframe? Freshman year, they had an executive come in and speak to our class, and I can't relate to high-level executives. You know, as a student, I sit there and, you know, what are they trying to sell me? Like, what are you trying to get me into a career that maybe I don't want? And the skepticism comes along, but as soon as I started my internship, which is, you know, it's no strings attached. It's an internship. You go through it, you don't like it. You just don't, you switch. You still have time. I ended up loving just doing systems programming, just picking up the book. And for me, like my personality, when I walked onto the raised floor, like, that was probably the best feeling. Walking onto the raised floor in your data center, you're walking out to a multi-million dollar machine, and it's yours. Yeah. So that's probably one of the greatest. And so what about you? We actually don't have a multi-million dollar machine. We have a connector there, but all the same. I also got involved with the contest my freshman year, and it was really interesting. It starts off click by click, literally, you know, keystroke by keystroke, and then gets more and more difficult as you go on. And I really didn't show a lot of interest in my freshman year. So after my freshman year, I actually had an internship at Volvo IT, and I worked in a group that everyone was developing on the mainframe, and just looking around, everyone was like 40 to 55 in that age group. And so I heard we had a class, and that's one of the things they talk about, how typically you think of a developer as one of the younger roles, entry-level position, and how so many of the people are getting towards retirement in the mainframe development field. So I decided to take the class and found it very interesting, and decided to get another internship at Chase where I was actually developing on the mainframe.
4:01In terms of that experience of Volvo, are they finding it hard to reskill and to bring people on, or because of the kinds of programs you're associating with, it's perhaps less of a concern? Absolutely, yeah. I know our program has gone for years. We only brought it back, I believe, two years ago at Widener. Chase, they're outsourcing a lot of it, but the code quality is a big issue. They're getting things back. It's not exactly what they're looking for. I know we hired three guys full-time last summer. They came in with me, and one of them had absolutely no experience whatsoever. They got to train them from the absolute ground up. So the more skills you have going into the position, the more valuable you are to the company. I'd like to ask both of you. I mean, a balance between operations and development. I mean, are you more interested in development? What's most interesting? Because clearly, especially in mainframe environments, there's a lot of separation of concerns. Right. Tend to get quite specialized, and so I'm quite interested in what's most interesting to you. Computer science major, the biggest fear of any computer science major is I don't want to be outsourced. You know, I want to have a career where I don't have to worry about being replaced by outsourcing overseas, which is application development is one of the biggest things you outsource. And so to go into systems programming, there's a little sense of job security. Like how many people are actually going to outsource your systems programmers? Not many because those skills really aren't developed overseas yet. And so basically, it comes from a standpoint where, not only that, but personally, I'm not the kind of person who would enjoy sitting in a black box coding programs all day. You know, being fed one, pushing out the other. I really like to interact with the environment. You know, the environment where I work is a big deal. You know, how are the people? Are they social? How are all the people? There's a lot of the mainframe guys. Yeah. They can only talk to them. It's a mixed bag. It's definitely a mixed bag. You have some that are definitely characters. And you have some who are, you know, they forget about the users and they focus straight on the system. So. Same as in anything. Yeah.
6:01There's a bunch of different breeds that work for it. I know one guy in particular that was a lead architect there. Didn't care how long it was going to take. Didn't care how much it was going to cost. If you save that one character for all these accounts, you're going to dedicate the time to it. And then you have people that just want to get it done as soon as possible. But one thing's for sure, across the board, they all speak their own language. There's so many acronyms and things like that. It is unbelievable, isn't it? I mean, I think that's one of the biggest challenges for IBM. Just talking to people to help them understand. Because it is an entire language. A self-contained language. Right. We try and encourage them to speak in English. That would be nice. When do you guys see your career in ten years? And what do you think the role of the mainframe might have been in that time? Within ten years, I expect to at least have my MBA as well. Because I want to go up the management level and the architect level. I definitely want being around the systems programming role. A little bit on the higher level. Because I know a lot of corporations are very big. They have huge data centers. They employ tons of systems programmers. So I just want to be up there around the top. I definitely don't want to be near the bottom of the hierarchy structure. I'd like to start out in development. Just to learn the language and the entire system. Because it takes some time. And maybe go back to school. Have to research more. Definitely interested in that. But hopefully, like you, I think an architect is absolutely an amazing position. Pays very well. It's interesting. You get to interact with a lot of different people. So hopefully one day. One thing I am interested in. Did Linux have any role in making you comfortable to start using the mainframe? Did you have any Linux background beforehand? So that was a thing you could understand? Or has Linux not been? Did Linux play any role in terms of bringing you to the platform and making you feel comfortable? Oh, of course. Especially with our generation. We're very, you know, Linux oriented. Not only that, but Java as well. And so I believe like earlier in the speaking they were talking about COBOL and what not. But we're attracted to the mainframe because you can run Java. You can sit there on Linux. And that's probably one of the biggest reasons why it's going to attract our generation. I'd say the same thing. There's a lot of different breeds now. If you get Ubuntu there's really no need for it.
8:02And Windows you can run through the command prompt if you wanted to. But with the GUI sitting there there's no reason. But we actually in our labs use Slackware which is straight down command prompt. So it really gets you used to the emulator. Great. Well, how about that? I used to be the youngest guy in the room when it came to mainframes. And that is no longer the case. So that's another fun packed episode of Red Munk TV. Thanks very much guys. I really appreciate that. Thanks. Okay. Nice to meet you.