Natural/COBOL Developer

This is a remote position.

The Natural/COBOL Developer will support the Texas Workforce Commission on the NASWA SIDES exchange implementation project. This role performs advanced automated systems development work as part of a project team implementing four standardized NASWA SIDES exchanges: Additional Fact-Finding, Determinations, Monetary Charges, and Benefit Charges. The position supports all phases of the system development life cycle, including requirements analysis, coding, testing, and troubleshooting for internal and external clients. The Natural/COBOL Developer will develop and test COBOL, Natural, and JCL applications, and will integrate incoming and outgoing NASWA SIDES data streams into the existing core legacy processing architecture. This work requires modification of runtime routines, user interface screens, database tables, and batch processing jobs across multiple functional areas.

Responsibilities

• Perform advanced automated systems development work as a member of the project team to implement the four standardized NASWA SIDES exchanges: Additional Fact-Finding, Determinations, Monetary Charges, and Benefit Charges.
• Support all phases of the system development life cycle, including external customer service, requirements analysis and documentation, coding, and testing.
• Resolve software, data, hardware, and reporting problems, and troubleshoot system issues for internal and external clients.
• Develop and test COBOL, Natural, and JCL applications to meet design specifications.
• Document current processes, create and review project specification modifications, and create test cases for new and modified programs.
• Analyze, document, design, and develop logical, structured programs and systems appropriate to customer needs that may be maintained by others.
• Test applications in accordance with agency standards.
• Ensure adherence to programming documentation, procedural standards, and management goals and objectives.
• Integrate incoming and outgoing NASWA SIDES exchange data streams into the existing core legacy processing architecture, including modification of runtime routines, user interface screens, database tables, and batch processing jobs.
• Conduct a separate, dedicated analysis phase for each of the four SIDES Exchanges due to variations in data formats, triggers, and validation rules across functional areas.

Requirements

Minimum Qualifications

• 8 years of advanced proficiency in writing, testing, and debugging COBOL, Natural, and JCL applications within a large-scale mainframe environment.
• 8 years of hands-on experience analyzing, modifying, and optimizing DB2 tables, schemas, and relational databases to integrate new data structures into existing systems.
• 8 years of knowledge of scripting and batch processing in legacy and current technology to modify online user screens (CICS/Map environments), runtime routines, and complex background batch processing jobs.
• 8 years of knowledge of Web API development, including SOAP, REST, XML, and JSON, with specific experience mapping and parsing external web-service data streams into legacy mainframe backend processing.
• 8 years of experience implementing secure user authentication and authorization protocols using enterprise frameworks such as LDAP, SAML, or OIDC.
• 8 years of experience analyzing existing legacy routines and batch processing workflows to integrate new functional elements and modify underlying DB2 database tables.
• 8 years of knowledge of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) principles, practices, and techniques of application programming and software design.
• 8 years of ability to accurately test software applications using a data driven development approach.
• 8 years of skill in solving problems, scheduling, testing, installing, and implementing programs, and troubleshooting computer software systems.
• 8 years of expertise in analyzing undocumented or highly customized legacy code routines to perform precise gap analysis and impact mapping.

Preferred Qualifications

• 2 years of prior experience specifically implementing or maintaining NASWA SIDES (State Information Data Exchange System) exchanges and technical specifications.
• 3 years of strong functional knowledge of UI program workflows, specifically involving Additional Fact-Finding (ADF), Determinations and Decisions (DD), Monetary/Potential Charges (MPC), and Benefit Charges (BC).
• 2 years of experience with SDLC tools such as Visio and ALM Octane.
• 3 years of experience handling and securing sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII) within a state or federal agency framework.
• 3 years of experience automating identity management services, including user authentication and authorization, using an authentication framework such as Azure, Okta, LDAP, or Entra.

Additional Requirements

• Texas-based candidates re preferred.
• Candidates may be subject to criminal background checks as authorized by Texas law prior to selection.
• Candidates may be required to report to the office with seventy-two hour notice for any TWC business need.
• Overtime work exceeding forty hours per business week must be coordinated and pre-approved through TWC.

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