IT Social Hour: Meet TechChannel’s Newest Rising Stars
Coming from an array of unique backgrounds, this collection of standout early-career technologists explain the keys to their success on IBM Power and IBM Z systems
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The following transcript has been edited for clarity:
Andrew Wig:
Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of IT Social Hour. Today, we’re getting to know a few of our rising stars. Every year, TechChannel recognizes standout earlier career talent on IBM Power and mainframe with Rising Stars. We’ve got four of them with us today. Got Jacob Anderson of Fortra, Adia Sakura-Lemessy of Broadcom Mainframe Software, Justin Becker of Innovative Software Solutions and Nishka Sardar of Vertali. So all, congratulations on being a Rising Star for 2025. And without further ado, let’s just get to know all of you. And we’ll start off, but just by having you briefly explain what you do in your jobs, we’ll start off with Jacob from Fortra. Jacob, what do you do there?
Jacob Anderson:
Yeah, I’m an associate software engineer and right now I’m tasked with working on the Robot Schedule product. So it’s a really great time and it’s great to be involved with such a prestigious product with such a great and rich history.
Wig:
Exciting stuff. Yeah. Adia, what do you do at Broadcom?
Adia Sakura-Lemessy:
Yeah, so I’m a technical consultant for our mainframe security software. So essentially I help customers maximize the value of our products and strengthen their security infrastructure.
Wig:
All right. And Justin, how about you? What do you do over at Innovative Software Solutions?
Justin Becker:
I am a programmer analyst. I work with customers, figure out specs and requirements for projects. I work on the projects myself. And I also do things like bug fixes and some of the software I maintain is older than I am, so that’s pretty cool.
Wig:
Yeah. Yeah. And Nishka, how do you do at Vertali?
Nishka Sardar:
So right now, I’ve only been in the job for four months, so right now I’m training. So my training is like a mix of independent learning and structured courses. So I haven’t really gotten my hands on at the moment on a mainframe. I’m doing real client work, but I’m getting there.
Wig:
Laying the foundations. Yeah. All right. Well, we’ll get into our formal questions here. And first off, it’s really interesting just to hear about all the backgrounds people come from. And it’s a wide array of places in life people are coming from when they find the platform. And so that’s just really what I want to know is just kind of what were you doing before you started working on either power or the mainframe, what attracted you to the platform and kind of really how you found it too. So for that one, let’s start with Adia.
Sakura-Lemessy:
Yeah, sure. So I guess I could start by talking about what it was I was doing before I started working on IBM Z mainframes. And really for me, that was just college. I opted to start my career in mainframe. So I could tell a little bit about my backstory there. Essentially, I knew once I became a computer science major that I wanted to work at cybersecurity, but I didn’t consider working in mainframe at all until I was like in my senior year. We had some IBM Z ambassadors at my college, Albany State University, but when they first started telling me about it in like junior year, for me it was kind of in one ear, out the other. I’m like, okay, something, something big computer, something, something credit card transactions. I didn’t think I wanted to do that. And until I got to, I graduated in fall, so I was a senior that spring, spring of ’23, one of my professors took a group of students from my university to SHARE Atlanta, which was only like a three hour drive from us because I was in South Georgia, and I had a great time.
It was really informative, really eye-opening. I loved getting to network with mainframers in an actual real environment. And even though I didn’t know much about the technology at the time, just that experience alone was kind of enough to solidify for me that I think this is where I might have a space in the tech industry. And after that, I ended up doing a summer internship for a software vendor. And that coming fall, I applied for the Vitality program and I start at Broadcom’s Vitality program. And I started about 10 days after I graduated from college. So Mainframe has been my start. I think it’s been a great start. I really think that Mainframe is a very powerful platform. We’re in the background, but that’s because when something is working consistently, you don’t have to notice it, so to speak. But that’s what really kind of drew me to the platform first was the people.
So that was, I think, your first question.
Sakura-Lemessy:
I don’t want to take up all the time here.
Wig:
No, that’s great. That’s great. Yeah. The people, you get to know the people and then you get to know the technology and they both support one another and here you are. So that’s great to hear. Let’s go to Justin. How about you, Justin? What were you doing before you came to … I think you’re working on IBM Power in that ecosystem. What were you doing before you arrived at that point?
Becker:
I was doing a lot. I have a background in childhood education, so I was a preschool teacher for a little bit, and then I moved from that into healthcare. So I started as a pharmacy technician, eventually worked my way up to pharmacy liaison, which is sort of the across between technical pharmacy skills and sales. So I was working with a lot of insurance companies and patients face-to-face and that sort of thing. And then I moved into cardiac telemetry. I was a cardiac telemetry specialist for a few years. And during that time, I spent maybe seven, eight years as a healthcare worker. I was like, “I think I want to get into nursing.” So I started the nursing program at my college and I was maybe a third of the way through that and I was really doing it because I wanted to work in nursing informatics.
I’d had some experience being a Power user for Epic EMR, which is an electronic medical record keeping system. So I thought, I think I’d like to be in nursing informatics, which is essentially for those who don’t know, nursing IT. And then realized this is a lot of overhead just to go into IT. So then I finally made that transition. And at this point, I had actually quit my job as a telemetry specialist and I had started doing musician session work full-time. So I was a session musician for about a year and a half, two years in there while I was in college. And then I went straight from college to the IBM i.
Wig:
So in your job, I mean, it was so techy that you figured you might as well just go all the way to IT.
Becker:
Yeah. I mean, I enjoyed the healthcare element, but also I was working in healthcare during COVID, and that put a strain on a lot of us in the field. And so while I was going through all this, nursing school’s hard. If you fail out of a class, you can essentially lose your place in the program. So it’s high stress, demands high performance. And I was like, “I’m doing this not so that I can eventually be a nurse, but so that I can eventually be the IT guy that supports the nurses.” This is a step towards my end goal. And then I realized I can actually just sort of eliminate that middleman and jump straight into IT. So yeah, I had an instructor named Char Parker, same instructor Jacob had. She was an OG. She started on punch cards, RPG punch cards, and she networked with the necessary people to get us to conferences.
So she worked with Common Education Foundation, which I now proudly sit on the board of. And she worked with the IBM i Academic Initiative and got us to a few conferences. And I went to the Wisconsin Midrange Computer Professional Association conference where I met Marina Schwenk and Rochelle Petty and Anamara. I met Jim Buck, the author of my textbook, which kind of blew my mind. And everybody was so friendly and so enthusiastic about the platform that I sort of whispered to him after his session. I was like, “Is this a cult?” And it’s like, “It’s absolutely a cult and welcome to the family.” So everybody was so kind and so welcoming. There was a eagerness to learn and to educate at the conference. And I was 10 weeks into my software engineering program at that point, so I knew nothing. I’d done Hello, World and See, and that was it.
I asked ChatGPT what I should wear to the conference because I had no idea how I should dress. So my outfits were all chosen by ChatGPT, and it was a really incredible experience and that’s what solidified my interest in the platform was how welcoming the community was and how invested in young people’s education they were.
Wig:
Yeah. Common thread is that welcoming community is what I’m gathering. All right. And Nishka, how about you? How did you find the mainframe?
Sardar:
So before this, I was at university. So I literally graduated in July and then started work in July. So during my university, I had a professor called Herbert Daly. He’s quite prominent in the mainframe community in the UK and he took us to GSUK conference in 2023. That conference was really eye-opening for me because I’d never been to a conference before. I’d gotten to see so many knowledgeable people doing presentations and delivering their knowledge to people to, like Justin said, learn and educate. And it was really inspirational for me, I feel, because I’d never seen any of this before. It was like a completely new technology, but everyone was so welcoming. Everyone was so nice and actually eager to, I guess, pass on their knowledge and experience to you. So then after that, I became part of the Mainframe Student Society at my university.
And then in 2025, I was the president of the society. So I was leading the society. We went to a bunch of conferences, held guest speaker events, connected with industry, mainly WAVEZ and Mainframe Society in the UK. So they’re like organizations that give students opportunities in mainframe. And then after that, I guess I did a bit of networking. I learned about Vertali’s New to Z scheme and I applied.
Wig:
All right.That’s great to hear. It sounds like there was kind of a solid infrastructure that you could kind of get into when you realized the mainframe was what you wanted to do and you seized that opportunity. So love to hear that kind of stuff. All right. Oh yeah, we still got Jacob. Jacob, how’d you get into the power platform?
Anderson:
Well, yeah. So during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was a fuel hauler. And so there was a program in Michigan called the Futures for Frontliners Program where if you worked over 40 hours a week during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, they’d give you basically a grant for an associate’s degree. So I started attending an in-district school, which just so happened to be Muskegon Community College, and they have an IBM i RPG course there, which I ended up taking. As Justin mentioned earlier, our teacher did set us up with some conferences and through there, I was kind of able to immerse myself in the community and kind of get a feel for what they had going on, and talked to some of the presenters at the conference, got a mentorship as a result of attending the conference, and then that kind of just catapulted me into the world of IBM i.
Wig:
So it was really kind of almost happenstance. They happened to just have a program at the school you were attending and—
Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah. I always joke that if I lived, I think two miles south of here, I’d probably be doing something else entirely. So it’s a chance thing.
Wig:
That’s amazing how things work out sometimes. Well, that’s great. Yeah. Great that you’re here in this community now. All right. Well, let’s dive a little bit deeper. And next question I had was just kind of … I think there’s what you imagine and then reality, of course, once you start to really get into the work. And I’d just like to know how your experience on your platform, whether it’s mainframe and Power, differs from how you imagined it before you started working on it. So for that question, maybe we’ll start with … Yeah, let’s start with Justin. How did your preconceived notions compare to reality?
Becker:
Well, I mean, coming straight out of college and going straight into your career, you’re sort of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. You expect everything to adhere to best practices and the standards that you’ve learned and you expect clear, concise code. Anyone who’s worked 10 minutes in any IT field can tell you that’s not really the case. So I expected things to be a lot cleaner, and then in some ways I expected them to be a lot messier than they actually are. I mean, the beauty of the platform is that, as Adia said, you can just stick it in a closet and just forget about it and it just keeps chugging and working. So the code is stable, but it’s also, it’s confusing in a lot of ways, right? Because go-tos, for example, we learned about go-tos in school and essentially all we learned was never use go-tos, they’re awful.
So we didn’t really learn how to debug go-tos. We didn’t learn how to work with the logic of go-tos, and that’s very prominent in the ERP that I work with, right? So it’s different in that it’s not as clean. It’s surprising because it’s cleaner than I expected after my first introduction to it. And it’s also a lot more modern than I was led to believe. We didn’t really work with VS code. We didn’t really do anything with integrated technologies in school. It was very bare bones, boilerplate kind of stuff. So when I got into it, I was like, “This is actually just as modern as any other platform.” It’s just had a lot more time to mature.
Wig:
So you kind of learned the hard version maybe you could say.
Becker:
So Jacob can attest to this, Char. We didn’t even know that RDI could convert to free format. We didn’t know about screen designer. Char started us with paper and pencil grids where we had to write the specs for our display files and our printer files by hand and type them in DDS by hand. And then after a few weeks of that, she was like, “All right, so here’s screen designer.” And we were like, “What?” So she really started, she taught us how the hotdog is made before we actually got to go and play with the new tools.
Wig:
The fundamentals. All right. Nishka, how about you? How did reality on the job match with your kind of preconceived notions, notions of the mainframe? Maybe there are some things you learned, you probably learned some things once you were part of the mainframe society at school, and then you probably had other notions, other things you learned once you got actually involved in the platform or professionally. Yeah. What happened with you there?
Sardar:
I think the main thing is that there’s at conferences and when you talk to professionals, they say a lot that mainframe’s kind of like a really integral part of finance and banking and just companies in general. But I feel like I didn’t actually really understand the extent of that until I actually started working and I actually found out how important mainframes are and the systems are to clients and to companies that are huge and how much data they actually have on there. So I think that’s probably the main thing.
Wig:
Okay. Yeah. I imagine you probably heard like that 74% number, transactions on mainframe, but it’s like, what does that really mean? And then you start to dig in and it’s like, whoa, okay. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. And Adia, how about you? What was your preconceived notions versus reality?
Sakura-Lemessy:
Sure. So essentially, I would say the biggest preconceived notion I had was I didn’t understand that the mainframe is as modern as it is, which I think goes along with what Justin was saying in particular. I knew that mainframes … Once I got into starting those conversations to share and whatnot, I started to understand the mainframe had been around a long time, but it wasn’t until I actually started working on the platform a bit through that internship. I was writing Python code in VS Code and that was something I hadn’t realized the skills I was learning in college. Some of those would have a place and could be directly transferable. Now there was a lot of new things I’ve had to learn naturally, but the mainframe has the capacity to be used with many different ways of interfacing, many different programming languages. Some of the introductory skills don’t have to be completely foreign, at least to those with a more traditional current IT background, right?
But although of course the other thing is that you don’t even need that to work in mainframe because I met several people throughout conversations, networking, through my time in Broadcom’s Vitality program who have come in, including right here on this call, through other backgrounds, right? Coming from other fields, transitioning into mainframe. And I think that’s actually really cool because it creates a wide array of opinions and skill sets that I think is always valuable for kind of fostering communities like this.
Wig:
Yeah. I mean, people are learning mainframe skills without even knowing it, I guess, huh? With the-
Sakura-Lemessy:
Yeah, in a way. And especially things also with USS as well, there’s that whole side of Unix and whatnot that you can also encounter a lot of doing computer science in college right now, even though there might not be mainframe-specific courses.
Wig:
Great. And Jacob, I think I skipped over you in our order here, but I guess that’s okay. How about you? How’s reality match what you were thinking going in?
Anderson:
Yeah. So I guess initial thinking is you think the whole thing is just green screen, and then RDi is there to kind of help you with a modern IDE to write the code in. But you find out there’s open source stuff like PHP and Python as previously mentioned. There’s VS Code extensions to kind of help you integrate VS Code to your workflow. And then people have hosted large language models on the IBM i. So it’s really not just green screen, I guess, is the main thrust of what I’m trying to say. There’s a lot more to it if you look underneath the cover, so to say.
Wig:
Yeah. I hear plenty about IBM i being a really solid platform for AI, all sorts of AI stuff. So with all that data. Yeah. All right. So next question is really how you … There’s some things you learned, you had some training going in and some familiarization, but there’s always new things. So I’m really kind of curious how you got up to speed once you’re on the job and how you familiarize yourself with your new environment. And for that one, let’s start off with Nishka. What helped you kind of … Or what is helping you currently, I suppose, too, kind of really develop your mainframe skills?
Sardar:
I think probably my main resource you could say are definitely my colleagues and mentors at Vertali, because I think there’s only so much you can learn from reading books. I think a lot of it is watching people do the work and kind of them explaining what’s going on and you kind of absorbing information by seeing and hearing. I think they’re all really supportive and they encourage asking questions as well. So they really want me to ask questions and then they really enjoy answering questions too. So I think definitely that’s kind of like the main way I’ve been learning. I’ve also been reading, it’s a really famous book for beginners. It’s called “What On Earth is a Mainframe.” That book, I’ve currently been working my way through that. And yeah, for me, it’s just like the more I see, the more I learn. So definitely that.
Wig:
Wonderful. Yeah. Great. It’s great when you can feel comfortable asking questions and not feel too judged and all that. I think that’s pretty critical for learning anything. And now we’ll get our order back. We’ll go back to Jacob here for that one. How’d you familiarize yourself with the platform?
Anderson:
Yeah. So I think definitely talking to coworkers, talking to my mentor and then talking to other industry professionals is probably the best way to kind of lift the veil on that. I think the main issue that I ran into was trying to fit this operating system into a Windows paradigm, and it’s not really that way. The seeds of the IBM i predate Windows. And so if I had to give anybody some advice, do not try to fit this operating system into a Windows paradigm, it’s really its own thing. And if you keep that in mind, you should be doing okay. But yeah, if you need help, consult industry professionals and mentors. I just had somebody tell me that when the system first started, there were people called system operators and Robot Schedule has kind of taken over that duty for a lot of people, but hearing that there’s system operators doing work management kind of opened my eyes to how the system works.
So I think that was a revelation as well.
Wig:
Great. And Adia, how about you? What helped you get up to speed?
Sakura-Lemessy:
Sure. So I guess before I answer that, I’ll also give some clarification on my timeline, which I suppose I should have given earlier. So I started Broadcom’s Vitality program fresh out of college and I was part of that training for eight months. And then after that, we were working to kind of get placed with our potential future employer. And in my case, an opportunity arose from me to stay at Broadcom where I joined their tech consulting team. So essentially, a lot of the learning I had during the training was very structured. I think maybe kind of parallels some of what I’m hearing also on the call, like Nishka and such as well. And even though we had all that structure, it was pretty challenging because there’s a lot of information. Sometimes I often hear said, drinking from a fire hose, I wouldn’t say that’s inaccurate.
And that’s really because mainframe is a very deep pool. Now, what’s not so bad about that is that I realized over time it’s okay to have a lot of questions and asking those, as others are saying on the call here too, asking people, asking mentors, asking my coworkers, “Can you help explain this to me?” We had instructors when I was in training where I could ask, “Can you go over that concept again? Because it’s just a lot.” And a lot of the technologies were different than what I learned in college and were new skill sets or expanded on certain concepts I learned, but hadn’t realized I was going to be using more in depth because up until senior year, I thought I was going to be doing software development for distributed systems, right? And mainframe is its own different world, like logging into that 3270 emulator for the first time, it’s a different world.
So yeah, it was pretty challenging. It has continued to be pretty challenging in some ways for sure. I think there’s still lots of stuff to learn only two years in now, right? But yeah, the most important resources for helping me overcome that has mainly been talking to people when I need help. And other than that, it’s a lot of reading product documentation. It’s maybe not the fun answer, but it is the practical answer, right?
Wig:
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes that’s how it has to get done is just buckling down and hitting the books. Yeah. And Justin, how about you?
Becker:
Man, it’s a beautiful, simple language, but it’s also complicated in a lot of ways. So I’ve often said to students that I’ve interacted with at conferences that the best way to learn RPG is from other people. So as Eddie was saying, it’s important to be able to ask questions and have that back and forth. Sometimes you do have to strap in and read documentation, but I’ve never really learned that way. So my most indispensable resource has been my N2i mentor, Jasmine Kaczmarek. It’s a program that’s free for anybody to get into. You can be a mentor, you can be mentored. A few months into my degree, I got connected with Jasmine and we have continued to meet pretty much every week for the past two years almost, and she has helped me immensely. So N2i I think is the best possible resource because that’s going to give you a personal hand-holder with a lot of industry experience.
But then also Simon Hutchinson’s RPGPGM website, I append that to every Google search I do to see if he has anything on what I’m looking for, because his explanations are concise and well detailed and very easy to understand. And he’s very modern in his approach to things. I also work with Marina Schwenk, who also does a lot of sessions and is an education advocate. So often I can get a better answer just sort of with a team’s message to her than I can doing a few Google searches. So I am fortunate that I work with and have access to people who have that kind of experience and the willingness to share that experience with me. So I would say that anyone who’s interested in getting into the platform should check out those resources I mentioned. And as Andy said, feel free to ask questions because we in the industry love to talk about everything we know.
Wig:
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like maybe more resources than ever to learn this stuff, especially with AI and being able to query large language models and code assistants. But I don’t think any of you even mentioned that. So that tells me that, but you all mentioned people, so it sounds like that’s still pretty critical, actual human beings helping you find the knowledge you need. So I think we got through all four of you for that last question. I think I combined a couple of questions we were talking about as what challenges you face and how you overcame them. So I think you’re able to kind of combine those in your answers. So thanks for doing that. And we’ll get to the next one here. And that is kind of touching on a little bit what we’ve talked about is just, you’ve all heard about the skills gap.
We talk about it all the time and people retiring and we need people that know how to work on these systems and come in and replace them. And so I imagine there’s some people out there, maybe some higher ups that would be pretty interested in hearing what you all have to say about maybe what they can do to attract more talent such as yourself to either the mainframe or Power. Yeah. So let’s start off with Jacob for that one. Do you have any thoughts on what people should be doing to recruit talent like yourself?
Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So I think right now, if you’ve got like retiring RPG talent, I think, and it makes sense that you’re going to want to try and hire somebody who has the same amount of experience and you need to because you need a lot of experience in this industry. But also, I think if a company goes to do that, they should consider onboarding a newcomer as well for some kind of continuity. You have somebody with equal experience as a person that just retired, odds are they’re probably going to retire here soon. So my suggestion would be to onboard new talent when you replace your old talent as well, that way you’ve got kind of a staggered approach. So yeah, and let me see here. Yeah, just give new people a chance I guess is the main thrust of my message there.
Wig:
Great. Yeah, that makes sense, the staggered approach. I can see that. Adia, how about you? What do you think the industry should be doing to attract talent?
Sakura-Lemessy:
I think for a lot of new folks, the big hurdle first is just understanding what mainframe is or having heard about it, because I really hadn’t heard about mainframe until junior year for me. As I said, in my case, we did have IBM Z ambassadors, but there’s a lot of people that don’t know that mainframe is even an option. The only time we ever hear about it is in movies and are hacking into the mainframe. So first, it’s like getting the word out is so that people know, yes, this is an option. It’s a valid option and it’s one that has longevity because that’s also the misconception. I think that has to be challenged is the idea that we are working on legacy platforms that are going away sometime soon. Now, I mean, people have been saying for decades the mainframe’s going away. I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.
I think it’s continued to be around for so long because it works. And I think that the thing is when people know that it’s an option, they know that it is something they can have a longstanding career in. The next thing is also just letting them know that even though there’s a lot of folks in this space who are highly experienced, and yes, you are trying to enter the workforce with all those people around you, there are a lot of them that want to prop you up. It’s not a bad thing to not have experience. It’s not a bad thing to have not heard about the technology much in school or in your prior life, your other careers. It’s okay to come in with very little knowledge or familiarity. I mean, that’s what most of us have done, I think. We came in through happenstance training programs, just the job opportunity opened up at the right time and we built our knowledge from there.
And that’s perfectly fine. And there’s a lot of really helpful resources, mentors, and programs around that want to attract new talent. So it’s not a detriment to not have experience. That’s perfectly fine.
Wig:
Sounds like it’s very normal. So definitely reassuring words, I think, for anybody kind of curious about jumping in. Yeah. How about you, Justin? You have any advice for the people, the recruiters out there?
Becker:
I do. So everything that’s been mentioned so far, I completely agree with, especially the sort of scaffolding. You want to hire another senior to replace your senior, but I think it is more advantageous to hire a junior and have them do a lot of paired work with your seniors so that they can train them up because I think it’s a lot easier to teach good habits than to get rid of bad ones. So blank canvas is, I think, the best solution for some of these companies. But also, as a millennial, I don’t know if other millennials share my feelings, but I do not like the job hopping culture. I want to do the old school, find a company, work from for 40 years, retire comfortably. So I think attracting talent is one component, but also retaining talent is necessary. So offering things like work-life balance and the ability to have a pathway forward so that you’re not stagnating a pathway to retirement, so to speak, are the sorts of things that will attract but then retain talent.
Offering opportunities for continuing education, things like having a COMMON membership so that you can attend these conferences or opportunities to learn new technologies. These are the sorts of things that I personally find very attractive in a position. The ability to expand on my knowledge and feel like I’m growing my career. So that’s just what I would say to any prospective hiring manager is give the new guy a chance and also understand that our priorities may be a little different from the wizards that are about to retire.
Wig:
Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like keep providing opportunity to keep learning and nobody wants to stay stagnant. I hear that. Yeah. And Nishka, how about you? What do you think about what companies should be doing to attract talent such as yourself?
Sardar:
First of all, I completely agree with the idea in the sense that we need more people to know about mainframe and to show them that it’s an option for their career. I would say definitely more engagement with universities and educational institutions. That’s probably one of the main things. And also, like how Adia mentioned, we have the Z Student Ambassador program and there’s a lot of student societies popping up around the world nowadays. So I think that for companies to acknowledge these groups and to actually engage with them, support them, maybe have learning events, insight events. I would say more demonstrations because when I was a student, I would hear a lot of people talk about mainframe, but then no one actually showed me what they did in their day-to-day job. So I knew that, okay, mainframers do this and that, but I couldn’t see what they did.
So it never actually occurred to me, I guess, what the career actually involved until I properly started working. So yeah, definitely more demonstrations for both older and new technology. So we can, I guess, companies or professionals could go to universities and say, “This is what the 3270 terminal looks like. ” Maybe people think that students might get a bit put off by that, but I feel like there might be someone out there that actually really finds the green screen really interesting, but they just don’t know about it yet or they just haven’t heard of it yet. So to have that kind of reach to show people this is what mainframe is, this is another area of technology, just like artificial intelligence or data science or full stack development, just like that mainframe is an option, it’s a career, it’s a whole industry and maybe people who are genuinely interested might actually be attracted to that.
And also the thing is then if we increase our reach and spread, I guess the word of mainframe around to students, I feel like there also needs to be enough opportunities to be able to then say that you can have a career in mainframe. So I feel like there needs to be more entry level opportunities as well.
Wig:
Okay. Yeah. It’s interesting what you said about just kind of taking the mainframe from just this vague idea. Even when you were in the mainframe society and college, it sounds like you still maybe didn’t know what exactly are people doing on the mainframe. So like taking that and kind of making it concrete sounds pretty important, especially given how much in popular culture the mainframe is, like it was mentioned, something that’s in movies and was like, no, it’s a real thing. So yeah, it’s interesting to think about all that. Yeah. And let’s see, did we cover everybody for that question? I think we did. Awesome. Okay. Next question. So kind of going the other direction, say you’ve got a friend who’s maybe a couple of years behind you in their education or their career and they’re thinking about looking at your platform as a career option, whether it was Z or power.
So the question is really, what would you tell them about it? What should they know about the platform so they know whether it really is for them or not? And Adia, do you have any thoughts on that?
Sakura-Lemessy:
Sure. I mean, I’ll admit I touched on this a bit in my previous answer because to me, I feel like the opinions of the new people looking towards the industry are very important with kind of considering, well, what can the industry do, right? Is trying to impress upon new people, some of what I was discussing before, right? In terms of making it clear that it’s an option. And that’s what I would say to like, if I have someone who is considering a career in mainframe, and I’ve had a couple people from a university and such who have asked about it afterwards, as I’ve begun to settle into my career and such, is that what you want to know about the platform itself is really that it is modern and it’s stable. It’s going to be around for a long time and there is definitely room for new people here.
Although I think the easiest way to do that is through the community, networking with people, asking questions and kind of getting to put faces to names. I found that mainframe is a pretty close knit community and I think that actually helps a lot because once you start to meet people, it’s very easy for your pool, your network to expand outwards from there. And even though working on mainframe itself can be pretty complicated at times, there’s a lot of new things to learn and such, like it’s okay and not to be too intimidated by that because really I’ve found, I’m working with people who’ve been doing this sometimes 30, 40, even close to 50 years and they’re still learning new things. So just come in with like a willingness to learn and the right mindset and you’ll be fine.
Wig:
Don’t be discouraged. Yes. Justin, how about you? What would you tell a friend who’s interested in this line of work?
Becker:
We are a passionate bunch of nerds and we love to teach and we love to learn. So one of the first things I would recommend is immersing yourselves in the online communities, right? So there’s a Reddit, there’s a subreddit, not IBM i subreddit. There are Facebook groups. There are various sites, forums where we congregate like midrange and I’ve used Scott Klement’s form quite a bit. Getting involved with n2I is imperative, I think, for anybody new to the platform and new to IBM i. So follow people on LinkedIn that are in the community. I follow Simon Hutchinson, obviously Christian Larson is another one, Nick Litton, these people who do … So for me, I’m personally more of a visual learner. And so for things like Python or C or any quote unquote modern languages, there’s a million video tutorials. You jump on YouTube and watch stuff.
There’s all sorts of Code Academy and Hack the Box tutorials. But you really have to know the people who know how to do it in the IBM i community to find those resources. So find the online communities, ask questions, lurk for a while if you’re not comfortable asking questions yet, but people on LinkedIn and Reddit just love to jump in the comments and explain things. So my recommendation to anybody who’s considering the platform is have people who you can rely on when it gets too overwhelming because it’s going to be drinking from the firehouse as it was mentioned and you need somebody who can help sort of stifle that flow a little bit and filter it for you. So that would be my recommendation, but also don’t use it. I’m going to talk about AI now. Don’t use AI as a crutch because it’s really easy to just have it spit out boilerplate that you don’t understand and that fixes the error that helps you find the command that you needed.
The struggle is what builds your skills, the recollection of the problems that you had to work out for yourself. So AI, I’d say leave it until you have a grasp on what you’re doing and then tentatively bring it in.
Wig:
Yeah. I guess AI is kind of, as I teach someone to fish or give someone a fish to eat for a day, teach them the fish to eat for a lifetime. So I guess AI is kind of giving you fish sometimes as opposed to you learning it. I don’t know. And Nishka, how about you? What would you tell a friend who is interested in the mainframe?
Sardar:
Yeah, like Justin said, I would get them connected with a mentor. So I would tell them to use LinkedIn or go to conferences, go to events and connect themselves with professionals, someone that can help them get a better idea of what a career in mainframe involves. Also, I would also kind of pitch the whole idea of the fact that in mainframe, there’s so much more opportunity to develop yourself outside of work as well. So you could give presentations, you can get involved with things online, you can do webinars, you can contribute to open source, you can get involved in the community, mentor people or find mentors. So there’s a lot to do outside of your work as well. And in a way, I guess it’s fulfilling. So you can kind of figure out what interests you and then use that not only to, I guess, to do something you enjoy, but also to develop your career as well and your skills.
Wig:
Great. And how about you, Jacob? What would you tell a friend about Power Platform?
Anderson:
Yeah, I think I would mention that it definitely can come across as a misunderstood platform. Some people see the green screen and they think that’s all it is, but there’s really a lot more to it. And I would kind of let them know that it’s a really, really stable platform. A lot of people who start on the eye, stay on the eye for their whole career. So it’s great in that sense. And there’s a lot of great opportunities for new people. There’s going to be kind of a vacuum with the RPG decade of crisis. We’re going to be losing a lot of our talented IBM i and RPG developers. And so we’re going to need people to fill those roles. So we’re going to have a lot of opportunities. It’s a very stable job and working with the people who are involved at it is just amazing.
So can’t think of a better time to get involved with the IBM i.
Wig:
I’m sold. Sounds like a good option. All right. All right. I think we’re at our last question here. It looks like we’re going to fit it in time. This is great. So yeah, last question. Just want to know, now we’re looking at the future, you’re a big part of this future in IT and on your particular platforms and your ecosystems. So what gets you excited when you think about the future or what is a little bit scary or maybe some things where it’s like, all right, well, we’ll see what happens with that. Yeah. So let’s start with idea for that question. Well, actually, no, I’m sorry. We started you last off, didn’t we, for the last question? Let’s start with Justin for that question.
Becker:
I’m going to talk about AI again. Okay. So obviously that’s the giant pink elephant in the room is AI. Are we in a bubble? Is it going to take our jobs? Is it going to augment our jobs in a meaningful way? That’s the biggest, I think, sort of speculative unknown. And for me, I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, but I’ve had some access to Bob. I have some access to watsonX prior to Bob. And I can see how it will be a powerful tool, but I can also see how it can, as I’ve said, develop a crutch for new devs and for experienced devs too. The push from some companies, not necessarily mine or others in the IBM i space, but there are some companies that are pushing for vibe coding to maximize your output. And I think that that is going to allow some skills to stagnate and to sort of produce a lot of code that is going to make more tech debt than actual gains in the future.
So you’re going to end up fixing a lot of broken generated code and maybe AI will get good enough that it can fix its own code. I don’t know. But for my future fears and excitement is AI can go either way. And I hope that it goes the right way. I hope that it’s used as a tool and not as something that you need to do your job, because if I’m not able to just sit down and write code without an assistant, then I think I’ve failed somewhere fundamentally as a developer. I think that I’ve strayed from the craft. So that’s what excites me and scares me is AI. Sorry to anybody else that was going to talk about AI.
Wig:
We’ll see here. Nishka, do you have anything to say about AI or maybe you have some different thoughts about the future?
Sardar:
I was actually going to talk about AI, but I feel like in a more optimistic way, I feel like it’s going to help a lot. Or actually from a neutral perspective, I’m interested to see where it takes us, I think. I think it will be interesting. So I recently did a presentation at IBM Z. Day about how agentic AI agents are helping trainees in mainframe or how AI in general might help. And I think there’s like some ridiculous amount of potential use cases for AI in mainframe. They’re all just ideas at the moment, or some of them are currently in production, but not really. There’s nothing really out there right now. There’s nothing that’s being produced. So I’m interested to see how all of these potential use cases, I guess, are transformed into something real and something usable.
Wig:
Yeah. Lots still left to be determined as far as AI is concerned, so still in the early stages. And how about you, Jacob? What do you think? Is it all about AI looking forward or what are your thoughts?
Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah. So I was going to mention, Bob, too, because that is huge. And yeah, I think AI is going to be big. I think the IBM i skills gap is one of the top issues for a lot of companies out there. And I think Bob could definitely do some work to kind of bridge that gap. But since we kind of touched on that already, I guess I’ll bring up maybe a fear that I have to just bring up a different subject. So I guess what scares me is that the RPG and IBM i talent that is coming out of college is not being connected straight into the industry all the time. And I think when that happens, there’s a chance that they kind of get scattered to the wind and you train these people on IBM i and RPG and maybe they never get to use it.
So I guess what scares me is that we’re not doing a good enough job from the college to IBM i career pipeline. So I guess that’s just a little bit different takes.
Wig:
Yeah. So other industries are poaching IBM i talent basically maybe.
Anderson:
Yeah. Yeah. Or IBM i talent is graduating and they don’t necessarily know where to start and that can be a tough thing. And that goes to, we mentioned earlier about just people knowing that it exists. So yeah, I think informing people is a huge part of the obstacle we have to overcome.
Wig:
Okay. And Adia, how about you? What do you think looking forward here?
Sakura-Lemessy:
Well, I’ll say first that what I’m excited to see, I think, is mainly to do with how the ways that we interface with the mainframe will continue to adapt and change as we kind of say with like mainframe modernization is a bit of a buzzword, but still, right? We have the way that we might use different programming languages and methods of interfacing with the mainframe. You got Zowe, you can write Python or Java. There’s still a lot of place for the software as it exists now, but I’m just interested to see how it adapts and how that might also play into attracting new talent. But admittedly, I guess what I fear a bit is for seeing now that a lot of highly experienced folks are getting to that point, they’re coming up on retirement, they are moving out and folks like us have to be the ones to replace them in a way, replace quote unquote, but those are some pretty big shoes to fill.
So sometimes I do get a little, I guess, a bit anxious about the thought that ultimately some of those people retire that how do you live up to 40 years of experience? I realize it’s not that linear, right? It’s more complicated than that. But yeah, I kind of just continue to hope that a lot of the great mentors that are out there will continue to support and bring up the new folks like ourselves and set us up to have good, long careers here.
Wig:
All right. Well, thank you all. I think the future of Power and mainframe platforms are in good hands if this conversation is in any evidence and if our whole contingent of rising stars is any indication, I think from a talent perspective, things are looking good. So maybe just need more of it going forward and all that, but it’s just great to hear just your perspectives on everything, how you got into this, where you came from, just the ins and outs of the job and the challenges you’ve overcome and how you’ve done it. I think this will be very helpful to all sorts of folks out there who are interested in these platforms or people who are already in the industry looking to enrich it. So again, thank you and congratulations for being a Rising Star and thanks for coming on to IT Social Hour.
And just to close it out, I need to let everybody know you can get all the latest on all things tech by going to techchannel.com/subscribe.
Thanks everyone.