Mainframe Developer Survey Findings
Insights to put you on a path to improved speed & productivity
Mainframe represents a small but important segment of the global developer community. Understanding their perspectives and experiences is key to long-term business success.
In its recent study, Forrester Consulting gives an unfiltered voice to enterprise developers of z/OS-based applications across organizations, geographies, and generations.
Survey responses provide:
Unique insights into today's mainframe developer experience (DevX)
A roadmap to increased productivity for developers and companies
The participants
z/OS application developers
Mainframe experience (years)
Company size (employees)
Location
High levels of satisfaction and purpose
Overall, enterprise mainframe developers are happy, productive, and hungry for hybrid development practices. In fact, 68% are extremely satisfied with their career.
93%
are satisfied with their career
86%
are very likely to recommend their career
71% are extremely likely
93%
say their company views the mainframe as strategically important
56% say their company views the mainframe as extremely important
Mainframe Application Development:
Career Positives
1
High-performance platform
2
Professional opportunities
3
Job stability
4
Access to cutting-edge technology
High productivity yet limited time coding
89%
say their teams are productive
(52% say they're highly productive)
16%
of their time is spent on coding
Barriers to productivity
...and what to do about them
1 Outdated tools and frameworks
Solution: Introduce contemporary tooling like Visual Studio Code, Git, and automated DevOps toolchains.
70% of respondents believe Visual Studio Code would provide a major increase in productivity.
74% of respondents believe Git would provide a major increase in productivity
Remember: Giving developers a choice is a best practice. Dev environments and versioning tools are deeply personal for them.
2 Interruptions/context switching
3 (tied) Lack of autonomy
Solution: Empower developers with, for example, shift-left unit testing using Test4z and Db2 self-service using Broadcom DevOps for Db2. And as a best practice, invest strategically in platform engineering to abstract non-coding activities.
Remember: Autonomy and time spent coding are positively correlated.
3 (tied) Lack of Agile/DevOps practices
Solution: Adopt additional enterprise Agile and DevOps practices, many of which are highlighted in the full survey findings.
Remember: It’s best practice to educate those unfamiliar with contemporary Agile and DevOps practices so they can understand the potential.
Code comprehension is difficult
It takes 1/2 of respondents...
3+ days
to understand where to make changes to the code
What to do
- Facilitate code navigation with tools like Visual Studio Code (e.g., regular expression searches)
- Follow best practices such as:
- Pairing veterans with newer staff using a cloud development environment (CDE)
- Explore GenAI-powered Code Explain with Broadcom
Ideas to accelerate mainframe development
What developers are calling the biggest game-changers to mainframe development:
Tools
“No doubt that expanding the toolkit would speed mainframe development.”
DevOps/Agile
"Adopt DevOps as a standard operating model."
Workflows
“Streamlining integration, testing and deployment processes."
AI
“Bringing AI into development will change the whole game.”
Automation
“Implementation of automation solutions to optimize repetitive tasks and reduce resource provisioning time.”
Testing
"Solving the test automation problem."
Costs
“Reducing the cost of infrastructure will speed development.”
Collaboration
“Cross-platform collaboration with non-mainframe developers.”
Hardware
"Advanced hardware technology that can make the system's computing power and storage capacity more powerful.”
Forrester Research Report
To ensure the long-term health and vitality of mainframe applications, it’s critical to understand those responsible for them. While the voice of the global developer community is widely reported, the voice of mainframe developers is often drowned out. This study highlights their perspectives, challenges, and the opportunities they perceive.
Continue Exploring
CODE4Z
The free & easy way to transform VS Code into a powerful mainframe developer experience (DevX). Enjoy secure and seamless access using any source control tool (Endevor, Git enterprise servers, etc.) and DevOps toolchains.
TEST4Z
Usher in a new era of code change confidence and application vitality by empowering developers. With Test4z, developers apply the 6 Core Principles of unit testing using their tool of choice (VS Code, ISPF, Eclipse or other IDE).
Source: A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Broadcom, June 2024
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