Role OverviewWe are seeking a highly experienced Senior COBOL Developer to join our technology team at a large retail bank. This role is primarily focused on hands-on development and enhancement of mission-critical mainframe applications supporting core banking operations. The ideal candidate brings deep expertise in COBOL, CICS, and DB2, along with a strong understanding of high-volume transactional systems. This individual will play a key role in modernizing and maintaining legacy systems while ensuring stability, performance, and regulatory compliance. This is a one-year contract-to-hire opportunity, with the intent to convert qualified candidates into full-time employees. Because this is a contract-to-hire role with permanent hiring goals, candidates requiring visa sponsorship or who are not eligible for permanent employment cannot be considered.
Key Responsibilities- Design, develop, test, and maintain mainframe applications using COBOL, CICS, and DB2
- Support high-volume, mission-critical banking systems with a focus on performance and reliability
- Analyze business and technical requirements to deliver scalable and efficient solutions
- Perform code reviews, debugging, and performance tuning of existing applications
- Collaborate with business analysts, architects, and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into technical solutions
- Participate in release management, deployment activities, and production support as needed
- Ensure adherence to enterprise standards, security protocols, and regulatory requirements
- Document technical designs, processes, and system changes
Required Qualifications / Skills- Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Finance, Healthcare Administration, or related field.
- 10+ years of experience in mainframe application development
- Strong proficiency in:
- COBOL
- CICS
- DB2 (SQL, stored procedures, performance tuning)
- Operating systems: IBM z/OS, AIX,
Mainframe: COBOL, CICS, DB2, JCL, VSAM, TSO/ISPF, Easytrieve, Endevor , CA7, Control M, BMC AMI DevX Code Pipeline
Relational databases: DB2, Oracle
- Experience working in large-scale enterprise or banking environments
- Solid understanding of batch and online processing frameworks
- Proven ability to troubleshoot complex production issues
- Strong communication skills with the ability to work across technical and business teams
- Strong experience in COBOL development in a mainframe environment.
- Hands-on experience with mainframe technologies and legacy enterprise systems.
Proven ability to support and enhance mission-critical applications in a regulated or large-scale enterprise environment. - Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
- Ability to work effectively in a collaborative team setting while also operating independently when needed.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills for internal technical collaboration.
Preferred Qualifications- Banking domain expertise especially ACH/Payments domains.
- Experience with Fiserv integrations
- Familiarity with ZEOS Connect API development
- Exposure to modernization efforts (e.g., API enablement, mainframe integration strategies)
- Experience working in regulated financial environments
- Support ACH solution engineering and mainframe application development efforts in a banking environment.
- Design, enhance, maintain, and troubleshoot COBOL-based mainframe applications.
- Work closely with technical teams and business stakeholders to support enterprise payment processing solutions.
- Analyze existing legacy system functionality and implement enhancements or fixes as needed.
Participate in code reviews, testing, debugging, and production support activities. - Assist in modernization and retirement-transition efforts as institutional knowledge is transitioned from legacy team members.
- Collaborate with internal engineering and delivery teams to ensure stable, scalable, and compliant system solutions.
- Contribute to future-state planning as additional retirement-driven openings become available.
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
