Senior COBOL Developer

Project description

We are seeking an experienced Senior COBOL Developer with deep expertise in mainframe technologies to design, maintain, and modernize large-scale legacy systems. The role involves end-to-end ownership of batch and online applications, reverse engineering complex legacy logic, resolving production issues, and ensuring high performance, stability, and business continuity. Strong business understanding—especially in Life Insurance and Pensions domains—is highly desirable.

Responsibilities

• Application Development & Maintenance
• Design, develop, enhance, and maintain COBOL applications (Batch and Online).
• Work extensively with CICS, JCL, DB2, and IMS to support enterprise-scale systems.
• Ensure adherence to coding standards, security practices, and mainframe best practices.
• Perform impact analysis and effort estimation for enhancements and defect fixes. Batch & Online Production Support
• Provide L2/L3 production support for batch jobs and online transactions.
• Analyze and resolve abend issues, data inconsistencies, and performance bottlenecks.
• Handle high-priority incidents with minimal turnaround time and root cause analysis.
• Coordinate with infrastructure, DBAs, and operations teams during production issues. Legacy Code Analysis & Reverse Engineering
• Reverse engineer complex and undocumented legacy logic to understand business rules.
• Modernize, refactor, or optimize existing code while preserving business behavior.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, flow diagrams, and decision logic. Business & Domain Collaboration
• Work closely with business analysts and stakeholders to clarify requirements.
• Translate business requirements into technical designs and solutions.
• Apply strong domain knowledge (Life Insurance / Pensions) to ensure correct implementation of regulatory, policy, and financial rules.
• Support audits, compliance checks, and regulatory-driven changes. Performance Tuning & Non‑Functional Quality
• Identify and resolve performance issues in batch and online environments.
• Tune SQL queries, DB2 access paths, and file processing logic.
• Handle non-functional defects related to performance, scalability, availability, and resilience.
• Support system upgrades, migrations, or mainframe modernization initiatives. Mentorship & Technical Leadership
• Act as a technical SME for mainframe systems and legacy applications.
• Mentor junior developers and reviewers on COBOL, JCL, DB2, and CICS.
• Lead code reviews and knowledge transfer sessions.
• Provide inputs to architecture decisions and modernization roadmaps.

SKILLS

Must have

• Required Technical Skills:
• Languages / Technologies: o COBOL (Batch & Online) o CICS o JCL o DB2 o IMS (DB / DC)
• Mainframe Concepts: o VSAM, File handling o Abend analysis o Job scheduling and batch cycles o Online transaction processing
• Debugging & Support: o Batch and online troubleshooting o Root cause analysis o Production support best practices
• Performance & Quality: o SQL tuning (DB2) o Program and job optimization o Non-functional defect resolution Domain & Functional Skills:
• Strong understanding of business processes and workflows
• Life Insurance & Pensions domain knowledge is highly preferred: o Policy administration o Premiums, claims, annuities, and payouts o Regulatory and compliance-driven logic Soft Skills:
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to work with minimal documentation
• Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Ownership mindset and accountability in production environments
• Ability to work independently and lead small technical teams

Nice to have

• Experience with legacy modernization initiatives • Exposure to Agile / DevOps practices in mainframe environments • Experience working with offshore/onshore teams • Knowledge of scheduling tools (e.g., CA-7, Control-M)