Bob Langieri – President/Owner Excel Technical and IBM I Career Trends on LinkedIn.

Salaries for IBM i / RPG Developers/Programmers continue up. Average salaries of new hires of Sr. Developers in 2024 have been getting $120 – $130,000. I predict this going up 6-10% in 2025 ($127,000 – $143,000). Some with specialized skills getting 10-20% more. This is why it’s important to add to your skills. IBM i salaries still pale compare to other more popular platforms and skills. Savy IT Director/CIO salaries in larger shops are doing very well with base salaries running from about $250,000 to $350,000. Hiring is still very slow in the IBM RPG world as companies doing more with less! Hot skills are migration to Cloud, integrating Open systems with legacy systems, Web Services, use of Python, Git, AI and Cybersecurity.

In the bigger picture, I see Cybersecurity and Forensics as hot specialties for years to come. This is much broader than just the IBM i or Windows. Companies don’t like to admit they have been breached or held for “Ransomware”, but the truth is a very high percentage of companies have been hit, usually through their Windows servers. Ransom is usually in the 7-figure neighborhood and the fixes are taking months to repair and a toll on other needed projects.
More older IT people are working past retirement age. Working to the age of 70 is pretty common. Partly I feel that they want to keep working because the love their work, and partly because of the need to supplement Social Security. Another tidbit I hear, is that older workers are more reliable and have a better work ethic. Imagine that. But sooner or later, these people will leave and companies will find themselves understaffed. This is another reason why companies are having to be creative with training young IT minds to learn RPG as well as using part-time and remote part-time support. Over the past 8-9 years, most of my search activity has been because of someone retiring or dying. It’s a reality folks. As much as we need to protect against security threats, companies need to prepare for a dire shortage of skilled people. There are still a few (very few) resources to do the training for you and very affordable, but companies are being too shortsighted to make the investment. Is it worth $2,500 – $5,000 to train someone in modern RPG? You bet it is! And young developers learning the IBM i, will have the world in their hands as they are in hot demand.

Trends for RPG Programmers/Developers.
In years past, it was easier to track numbers of job openings by specialties like RPG Programmers/Developers. I researched both Dice and this year Indeed and using simple search terms like “AS400,” “AS400 Programmer,” and “AS400 RPG Programmer” I found mixed results. Overall, I found that in the last 7 days, there were approximately 40-50 full-time openings nationwide for IBM I RPG types. About half posted by companies and half posted by recruiters. Typically, some of those companies are giving those openings to recruiters, are also posting the same jobs so that 40-50 openings are probably more like 30 openings total for all of the USA. I see a trend in more openings for contract programmers and more companies willing to have programmers work remote. Many companies have moved to a hybrid work-week. Even those who said they never would. Some are 1-2 days remote and 3-4 days on-site. Personally, all of my contractors are working remote and I don’t see that changing. And these are all long-term relationships 1-8 years (full and part-time). Yes, there are also some direct hires, but over-all the IT Job market has been in a slowdown since COVID. My recruiter friends who work in the non-IBM i market (Windows, Unix, Open), have told me that 2023 was extremely slow as well.
For a number of years, I researched programming language trends on a site called Tiobe.com (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/) and watched as RPG declined in popularity from about 20 to no longer in the top 50. Currently C# is the most used language. But don’t despair, there is still a pretty big market for RPG fans. Just realize that IBM i and RPG are just one small sliver of a growing pie in the IT Programming language jungle. If you think individual pronouns are too many, just look at the top 50 Programming languages on Tiobe.com.
For years, I have been a student of economic and business trends. These are the tea-leaves I read: employment data (rates of unemployment, employment participation rate, monthly job creation number and how the numbers usually get revised downward a month or two after announcement and usually overlooked); the stock market is usually a predictor of the economy by 6-12 months; Interest rates; CPI – Consumer Price Index (Inflation); oil prices; the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; Numbers of job openings; and what I hear from people who work in the IBM i world. I hear from people who get laid off, company mergers, companies getting off the platform, IT Managers, and more. I believe the IBM i has so much potential, but companies need someone to show them the potential. Lately some big companies like Amazon, Apple, Meta and others have been announcing big layoff’s. are the concerned of a recession, slowdown or just trying to better their bottom line? This is why it’s so important to keep learning, keep upgrading your skills, experiment with new technologies. The internet offers you a wealth of information, how-to videos, webinars, sources for information that can advance your skills. AI has been around a long time, but thanks to Chat-GPT and similar tools, you can turn your theories into a real tool to make your company a step ahead of the competition. Microsoft has recently made a change to new keyboards for Windows 11, adding a new key called Co-Pilot that activates an AI Chatbot. Expect to hear much more about AI in the workplace, so learn it and add to your tool-belt.
Keep your career moving forward by learning new skills, be active about listening to the signs of new trends, follow discussions on LinkedIn, IBM news, webinars, user group meetings and conferences as well as COMMON. Invest your time and money in advancing your skills to better prepare you for your next challenge or opportunity.

Bob Langieri can be reached through bob@excelsearch or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3779728/

The Economy and You!
Okay, so you are in the IT field and as far as you know, there is a big demand for IT people. So, let’s dig a little deeper. What types of IT jobs are growing and what types are slowing? How young or how mature are your specialty skills? If you have 30 years of experience in banking applications and banks are outsourcing development overseas, your potential employers are shrinking. You may not have the knowledge to get hired by a manufacturing company when competing against candidates with a manufacturing background. The reverse is also true. If the steel industry is moving off-shore, or to a different state, you might be forced to move to stay in the industry. This is why it is important to be aware of economic and industry trends that can affect your career. Also, I do have some thoughts about the economy. While I get my thoughts from listening to business news 4+ hours a day. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a wealth of information, but I also merge that with opinions of business and finance analysts as to is the economy growing or slowing. Interest rates, US deficit and spending. These signals affect hiring, recruiting, jobs created, labor participation rate, unemployment rate. It’s a topic all by itself. According to ResumeBuilder.com, “4 in 10 Companies Expect to Have Layoffs in 2024.” “Additionally, 52% say their company is likely to implement a hiring freeze in 2024.” There may be opposite opinions out there, but these comments should make you pay attention and develop your own opinion. Predictions like this should motivate you to ensure that your skills are up to par and ready for the next opportunity. Can you show that you are someone who wants to learn, wants to keep up with new technology, active and self-motivated to participate in webinars, user groups, discussion groups? More companies are asking questions about how you learn new skills or keep up in your technical world.

Some general background for this article.

IBM i is the general name for a class of IBM business computers used small, medium and large companies. Some of the largest like Microsoft, Costco, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and just about every bank, Starbucks, Casinos from Las Vegas to Indian Casinos, overseas casinos, Retail stores like Nordstrom, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Ashley Furniture, Aerospace, manufacturers, shipping, logistics (trucking, container freight, warehousing), UPS, major league baseball, football, Hertz Car Rental, Hyundai/Kia, and many smaller companies that supply goods and services to other companies. RPG is a business programming language that has evolved from a simple Report Generator language (RPG) from the late 1960’s, early 1970’s, and has been modernized to the current version of RPG Free Form. The IBM i has a unique operating system that has never been breached.

Bob Langieri, the owner and founder of Excel Technical has been recruiting computer and programmer talent and placing them with companies that use the IBM i computer throughout the USA and has specialized in this niche market for the last 40+ years. He also places or leases experts called contractors, who work on an hourly basis for Excel Technical’ s clients. Bob Langieri as also been a founding member and Past President of the OCEAN User Group for IBM i education. Through his experience, he has been a speaker at OCEAN User Group, author of IT Career and Hiring Advice articles in Midrange Computing and IT Jungle as well as a blog on LinkedIn called “IBM I Career Trends.”