Building the next generation of mainframe expertise

"I'd always heard the term mainframe used in sci-fi but had no idea what it meant. I thought it was just another backend server that did the same thing any other server does," said Ben Conetta, one of a cohort of 10 graduates currently undertaking our first-ever NextGen Academy course in Australia.

It was a similar story for fellow graduate Akhil Gorasia, whose only point of reference was also from pop culture: "I had no idea mainframes were the backbone of the world, until I started at Rocket."

Our NextGen Academy, which kicked off in Perth at the end of February this year, is a career development program where early-career technologists receive structured technical mainframe training, work on real-world projects, and are mentored by our expert engineers with deep knowledge.  From the hundreds of applicants, we selected 10 talented candidates – our 'NextGenners', including Ben and Akhil – to join our full-time six-month Academy – two technical project managers and eight software engineers.

In fact, none of our NextGenners had any exposure to mainframes before joining Rocket Software.

For Ben, who studied software engineering at Curtin University, and Akhil, who completed a computer science and cybersecurity degree at the University of Western Australia (UWA), there were no mainframe electives on offer in either degree. That hasn't been a hurdle for them – both want to become software programmers working in our product teams.

Ben started exploring mainframe technology after he saw Rocket Software's listing and read about the IBM Z Xplore Learning Platform in the job description. He took the free entry-level, self-learning course before he applied, which introduced him to mainframe skills and Assembly programming.

"I found it quite fascinating being able to interact with a computer at such a fundamental level, and that's what made me really interested in the NextGen Academy," said Ben.

Akhil says he "stumbled" across the job listing on Indeed and it sparked his curiosity.

"I didn't realise how important mainframes are to us. I had no idea that government departments and banks are so heavily reliant on mainframes to handle their transactions. You tap your phone and it's instant – it's very fast. It just surprised me," said Akhil.

Accelerating the learning curve with AI

The challenge for younger technologists coming into the course is to adjust from a world where they are used to working with programming languages like Python to COBOL and Assembler on "a green screen where even basic conveniences like copy and paste just don't behave as expected", as Akhil puts it.

However, he and Ben are applying their familiarity with newer technologies to give them an advantage working in the mainframe world. Both see AI playing an important role.

AI tools are now being woven into Rocket's own product set with the launch of Rocket EVA, an AI-powered, agentic platform trained on mainframe-specific knowledge to deliver end-to-end diagnostics. Playing perfectly into this space is our NextGenner cohort's innate ability to adopt and create AI tools to modernise their working environments.

"We've been brought up with AI, so we are able to utilise it to create extensions and other tools that makes life easier for us, and also for everyone around us," said Akhil.

"I found it quite hard to understand some of the documented code from 20 or 30 years ago that was written in Assembler. Taking this code and feeding it through AI while also analysing it myself has given me a quicker and better understanding of what the code is doing, which has made it easier to enhance it and improve its performance," said Ben.

A mainframe career path

Once our NextGenners pass their final group assignment in August, we hope to offer all of them permanent roles in our business.

Ben believes he can make a difference in modernising and improving the efficiency of mainframe system products.

Akhil is also keen to make mainframe products more efficient. "I just want to be part of the development of the mainframe. I'm more interested in the nuts and bolts of the actual mainframe because there are so many intricate pieces that go into it. I want to try and make an impact and modernise this legacy tech a bit more."

The future of mainframe

Our NextGenners also see themselves as role models for future mainframe engineers.

Ben joined a colleague for a fireside chat with me in June at the ACS Foundation's BiG Day In at UWA. The BiG Day In gives year 9-12 students a chance to explore the world of STEM, including various career paths and opportunities, and the latest developments in technology.

Ben also met and spoke to students attending the event during the day. The students found it refreshing to talk to younger people they can relate to, instead of just our seasoned experts. And the fact that our NextGenners themselves had no knowledge of the mainframe little over a year ago, made the conversations between Ben and the high school students even more interesting.

Not surprisingly, only one student Ben spoke to on the day knew anything about mainframes: "we asked him, what does the Z stand for in an IBM z17? He said zero downtime. We were very shocked!"

When asked about the future of the technology, Akhil and Ben are confident that, with a new generation of engineers and by incorporating modern development practices and AI with mainframe ecosystems, mainframes are here to stay.

"Even though people are saying it's such an old piece of technology, massive companies are still using the mainframe, because there's nothing else like it. I don't see the mainframe being phased out; I see it as something that can become just as modern as any other system," said Ben.

While mainframes will continue to play a key role for the foreseeable future, a significant proportion of today's mainframe workforce are approaching retirement age. Ben and Akhil are part of the vanguard bridging this emerging skills gap and, also at the university and high school level, championing to increase both the awareness of the platform and its importance in underpinning so many of our critical systems.

The future of the mainframe is looking bright in our next generation's hands – they are about to write its most exciting chapter yet.