Mainframe careers, community, and modernization in motion.
Mainframe Connect treats the mainframe as a living technical ecosystem, not a museum piece. Its episodes move between career interviews, Mainframe Voices discussions, and Mainframe Coven conversations about women in IT, mentorship, open source, COBOL, IBM Z, and the path into mainframe work.
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Mainframe Connect is a community-centered technology podcast about mainframe computing and the people working around it. The show sits close to the OpenMainframe Project ecosystem, and its episodes repeatedly return to IBM Z, Linux on the mainframe, COBOL, open source, modernization, education, and professional pathways. It is not framed as nostalgia. The recent excerpts treat mainframe work as current enterprise infrastructure, with guests and hosts pushing against the idea that the platform is outdated or closed off. One recurring strength is the way the show ties technical adoption to career access. Conversations about open source emphasize experimentation, contribution, Linux on IBM Z, and the ability to translate familiar technologies into mainframe skills. Career-focused episodes look at how students, early-stage professionals, marketers, architects, and long-tenured practitioners find their way into the ecosystem. The I Am A Mainframer series gives those paths room to breathe. Stephen Dickens appears in that lane as a host asking guests to explain what they do, how they arrived, and what misconceptions they encounter. Mainframe Voices, hosted by Rahat, widens the frame with community questions about gratitude, modernization, education, and open source. Mainframe Coven adds another distinct strand. Its episodes focus on women in IT, safe spaces in tech, mentorship, lifelong learning, and the visibility of essential but often unseen technical contributors. Those conversations make the social architecture of tech as important as the systems architecture. The show’s register is professional but conversational. It can move from COBOL and S390X test failures to classroom learning, mentorship, conference community, and the anxiety students may feel when first hearing about mainframes. Its best use is as a guide to the living mainframe world: who is in it, what they are building, why open source matters, and how new people might enter without treating the platform as a relic. Mainframe Connect suits a listener who wants practical industry context with names, roles, and lived career paths attached.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants grounded context on mainframe computing, especially IBM Z, COBOL, Linux, open source, education, and career entry points. It also fits technologists interested in how enterprise platforms sustain communities across generations.
What sets it apart: Mainframe Connect combines technical modernization talk with career storytelling and community reflection. Its mix of I Am A Mainframer, Mainframe Voices, and Mainframe Coven gives the platform both an engineering frame and a human one.
The Mainframe Connect podcast includes the I am a Mainframer series, Riveting Mainframe Voices series, and other content exploring relevant topics with mainframe professionals. The I am a Mainframer series explores the careers of those in the mainframe ecosystem. Hosted by Steven Dickens.The podcast is sponsored by the Open Mainframe Project, a Linux Foundation project that aims to build community and adoption of Open Source on the mainframe by eliminating barriers to Open Source adoption on the mainframe, demonstrating the value of the mainframe.
COBOL and Python can share your career plan, if yours has room for a mentor.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how tech belonging can begin taking shape long before a career starts.
Mainframe Coven looks at safe space in tech as something that starts forming long before anyone enters an office. Chesilene Ponambayan and Rishala Ancro trace how early expectations around toys, caretaking, and service-oriented play can shape who feels invited into STEM, and who…
A grounded career-and-marketing discussion about why the mainframe still has to earn a fair hearing.
Hunter Johnson's career story gives this single episode a clear editorial lane: the mainframe's reputation problem. From his role in Broadcom's mainframe software division, where his work touches marketing for Beyond Code and the foundational and open mainframe value stream,…
Specialists walking through software's tradeoffs, one system at a time.
Founders and engineers on AI coding agents like Claude Code, and supply chain security.
The engineering decisions behind code, agents, and control.
Python tools, practical trade-offs, and the occasional programming joke.
Matt Stratton interviews DevOps practitioners on security, platform engineering, and trusting AI-written code.
["Mainframe Connect's Mainframe Coven episode 'Conjuring a Safe Space in Tech' opens with a Vienna exhibition called 'radical software, women in computing' and the term 'kilo girls,' defined as 1,000 hours of female computing labor.", "Chesilene Ponambayan, a product manager at Denitrace, and Rishala Ancro, a software engineer at Beta Systems Software, use the UN Women line 'without women's voices, the story isn't complete' to frame the series.", "They trace a leaky pipeline from childhood toys and STEM encouragement through university, early careers, family care, and leadership, while naming Pam Taylor, Madeleine Stowell, Siddharth Sana, and Leslie as cycle breakers.", "The episode ends on AI-coded bias, translation examples from Filipino, and the case for intentional hiring, mentorship, and inclusive design in mainframe and beyond."]
This episode explores how open source projects and communities create pathways for mainframe careers.
Sarah Julia Kriesch discusses her role as a lead mainframe architect at Kynrel, her contributions to open source, and her career journey in the mainframe industry.
A student shares his early journey into mainframe computing, discovered through a friend and the IBM Z ambassador program.
Hunter Johnson discusses his role in marketing Broadcom's Beyond Code initiative and his career journey in the mainframe industry.
Len Sancho Lucia connects 52 years in mainframes with teaching the next generation at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Leslie Browder shares her journey as a technologist and lifelong learner, discussing her early experiences with programming in the 1960s and her ongoing mentorship in the mainframe community.
Sudharsana Srinivasan discusses her tech journey from programming in India to becoming a mentor and advocate for mainframe technology.
Ricky West, an assistant programmer at the UK Land Registry, describes a path from RSM Partners to BMC and then to the Land Registry, covering CICS, MQ, Db2, security and system programming.
Pam Taylor, a historian mainframer, discusses her academic background in history and its influence on her perspective of early women in tech.
A special Women's History Month episode of Mainframe Voices featuring first-time IBM Champions sharing advice from influential women that shaped their careers.
Leonard Santalucia discusses his long career in mainframe technology, from IBM to his current role as CTO at Viacom Infinity.