r/cobol

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for real-world feedback on Mainframe salaries in Toronto. All experiences are welcome, regardless of the number of years of experience, but I’d particularly appreciate feedback from people with around 3 years of experience.

For context, I’m interested in roles involving technologies such as:

COBOL

JCL

CICS

TSO/ISPF

IBM RDz / Developer for z/OS

Endevor

CICS Web Services

CICS Transaction Gateway (CTG)

IBM MQ

Batch / production management

TWS/OPC or other scheduling tools

ServiceNow / production incident management

Other relevant Mainframe technologies

I’d love to hear from people currently working in Toronto, whatever their experience level.

If you're comfortable sharing, it would be great to know:

Your years of Mainframe experience

Your current salary / salary range

Your main technologies

Whether you work for a bank, insurance company, consulting company, etc.

Permanent employee or contractor

Any other compensation (bonus, benefits, etc.)

I’m mainly trying to get a sense of the actual market salary range in Toronto, rather than just relying on job postings.

Thanks in advance — all feedback is welcome!

Hi everyone,
I’m currently a Software AG Natural developer and I’ve also done a bit of COBOL. I’ve recently received an offer to work as a COBOL developer in the banking sector.
So far, my experience has mainly been in retail (supermarkets), and I’m wondering how difficult the transition to banking would be.
For those who’ve made a similar move, was the learning curve steep? Is the business domain much harder to understand, or is it mostly a matter of learning the business processes?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences. Thanks!

​Role: COBOL Expert (Asynchronous, 10–20 hrs/week)

Pay: $200 – $250 / hour

Company: Y Combinator-backed AI Research Lab (AfterQuery)

​What You’ll Do:

Create and evaluate COBOL programming challenges (Data Division structures, procedure logic, DB2/VSAM/CICS integration, JCL, batch processing) to train next-generation AI models on legacy systems code.

​Requirements:

​Hands-on, practical experience in COBOL programming and mainframe environments (z/OS, CICS, DB2, VSAM, JCL).

​Experience in banking, insurance, government, or enterprise legacy systems maintenance/migration is a huge plus.

​Apply Directly Here: https://experts.afterquery.com/apply/cobol?ref=d2w5b9HjxpcQtizyjfjk0I4HOtg1