Mainframe professional looking to explore other platforms

[sids]

Hi,

I have 5 years of Mainframe experience with DB2, CICS, COBOL, JCL, VSAM. I have recently been to the US on a L1 and tried checking the pay rates and demand for Mainframe professionals with the above skill sets. The following were my observations :

1. The requirement is not as specific as it is in India but as a consultant in the US you are expected to know IMS DB, PL/1, Db2connect and lot more (out of which I already decided to learn a few)
2. There are lots of Mainframe professionals available in the market.

I would like the experts here to suggest something totally out from Mainframes, but coexists with it, which would add value to my career. I would prefer if I can learn something without the base of JAVA, C++, C# where I have to first learn another language and then do a specialization in it. My thoughts are on Oracle SQL and PL/SQL & Data warehousing and related tools.

Let me know if my line of thinking is correct. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

[dick scherrer]

Hello and welcome to the forum,

1. The requirement is not as specific as it is in India but as a consultant in the US you are expected to know IMS DB, PL/1, Db2connect and lot more (out of which I already decided to learn a few)

This would depend on where you look. . . Most sites do not have applications written with pl/i. . . There are many, many contract positions that require these "DB2, CICS, COBOL, JCL, VSAM.".

The rate of pay widely varies for what often appears to be the same job description.

With no knowledge of what you "really want to do" it will be difficult for someone here to make a recommendation. As you will probly be working for many years yet, you need to make sure you do something you enjoy - whether it is computers or not or whether it is the mainframe or not.

As this is a mainframe forum, most are focused on mainframe technology and careers. Personally, i find working on all 3 main platforms (Mainframe, Unix, Win-based) quite interesting.