Software Engineer - Mainframe, COBOL/PL1

Overview

Being good neighbors – helping people, investing in our communities, and making the world a better place – is who we are at State Farm. It is at the core of how we operate and the reason for our success. We're moving with urgency to become a Next Gen Good Neighbor, with technology that strengthens human connections and enhances the customer experience. As an employee, you'll spend less time navigating systems and more time applying judgment, empathy, and expertise in the moments that matter most.
HYBRID: Hybrid Work Arrangement: A “Hybrid” position means selected candidates will be assigned to a facility and will spend some time working both in the office and from home. For Enterprise Technology, a hybrid work arrangement will require approximately 40% in-office time each month, beginning in late 2027.
HUB LOCATIONS: Bloomington, IL; Richardson, TX; Tempe, AZ; Dunwoody, GA
SPONSORSHIP: Applicants are required to be eligible to lawfully work in the U.S. immediately; employer will not sponsor applicants for U.S. work authorization (e.g., H-1B visa) for this opportunity.

Grow Your Skills, Grow Your Potential


Responsibilities

Software Engineer – Fire Suite

3 Positions Available | Mainframe Engineering

Bring Your Mainframe Expertise. Help Build What’s Next.

3 openings. 3 teams. 3 leaders. One Fire Suite.

Each position offers the opportunity to bring your skills to a different team within the Fire Suite—all connected by a shared mission to strengthen, modernize, and help shape the future of Fire.

This is an opportunity to do more than maintain existing applications. You'll solve complex business and technical problems, develop and enhance critical Fire capabilities, troubleshoot processing across interconnected systems, and help modernize how we build, test, and deliver software through AI, automation, GitLab, and CI/CD.

If you enjoy digging into challenging problems, understanding how systems work from end to end, and turning business needs into dependable technical solutions, we'd love to have you help us build what's next.

What You'll Do

As a Software Engineer within the Fire Suite, you will:

• Develop, maintain, and enhance mainframe applications primarily using COBOL, with PL/1 experience as an added advantage.
• Translate business requirements into technical solutions, including validation, calculation, transaction-processing, and business-rule logic.
• Develop and maintain COBOL programs, JCL jobs, Db2 SQL, file-processing logic, batch workflows, and system interfaces.
• Work extensively with IMS and Db2 databases and manage batch scheduling and processing using tools such as Control-M and Auto/Fire flow.
• Create technical and component specifications documenting processing, proposed changes, impacted programs, data, interfaces, business rules, error handling, and testing requirements.
• Perform impact analysis across programs, copybooks, data elements, records, interfaces, and connected systems to understand upstream and downstream impacts.
• Conduct unit, integration, negative, boundary, and regression testing, create test transactions, and validate processing results.
• Review job output, return codes, spool files, database updates, generated transactions, reports, and downstream results to ensure accuracy.
• Monitor and troubleshoot batch jobs, transaction errors, abends, missing output, and incorrect processing results.
• Investigate production issues, determine root cause, coordinate corrections, and verify successful reprocessing.
• Support integrations with upstream and downstream systems and business processes.
• Prepare implementation instructions, promote components through test environments, support production deployments, and perform post-implementation verification.
• Apply Agile and product-management best practices to assigned work.
• Collaborate with engineers, business partners, and stakeholders to solve complex problems and deliver high-quality solutions.
• Use AI tools and techniques in development and testing to improve quality, productivity, and problem solving.
• Contribute to continuous improvement of our engineering practices, including GitLab, Git/IDz, CI/CD pipelines, testing, and automation.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, component designs, processing flows, implementation details, and testing requirements.

Qualifications

What You'll Bring

We're looking for engineers with strong technical fundamentals, curiosity, and the ability to navigate complex systems and business processes.

Key skills and experience include:

• Strong COBOL development experience.
• Experience with PL/1 is highly beneficial.
• Strong JCL development and troubleshooting skills.
• Deep knowledge of IMS and Db2.
• Experience with batch scheduling and processing, including Control-M and/or Auto/Fire flow.
• Strong knowledge and practical experience using AI tools and techniques for software development and testing.
• Experience with Git and IBM Developer for z Systems (IDz).
• Proficiency with FM/Db2, FM/IMS, and ISPF/TSO for working within z/OS environments.
• Experience with Agility/VersionOne and applying Agile methodologies and product-management principles.
• Strong analytical, coding, debugging, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively across technical and business teams.

Additional experience with REXX scripting, SAS analytics, SPLUNK, IDAA, GitLab, and CI/CD practices is valuable.

Business knowledge or previous experience with Fire products—legacy, web-based, or both—is highly beneficial.

What Will Help You Thrive

We're looking for engineers who are technically strong but also curious, collaborative, and willing to dig deeper. You'll be successful here if you enjoy understanding the business behind the technology, tracing complex processing from beginning to end, taking ownership of difficult problems, and continuously looking for better ways to develop, test, and deliver solutions.

We're interested in your ability to understand the problem, analyze the logic, develop an effective solution, and demonstrate strong engineering fundamentals.

Why Fire Suite?

You'll join a team responsible for complex, business-critical technology while helping evolve how that technology is engineered for the future. It's an opportunity to deepen your mainframe expertise, expand your Fire business knowledge, solve challenging problems, and help advance our use of AI, automation, modern development tooling, and CI/CD.

We're looking for 3 Software Engineers who want to bring their experience, curiosity, and ideas to the team.

Bring your mainframe expertise. Learn the business behind the code. Help us build what's next for Fire Suite.

Our Benefits

Because work-life balance is a priority at State Farm, compensation is based on our standard 38:45-hour work week!

• Potential starting salary range: $85,500 - $145,000
• Starting salary will be based on skills, background, and experience
• High end of the range limited to applicants with significant relevant experience
• Potential yearly incentive pay up to 15% of base salary

At State Farm, we offer more than just a paycheck. Check out our suite of benefits designed to give you the flexibility you need to take care of you and your family!

• Get Paid! On top of our competitive pay, you are eligible for an annual raise and bonus.
• Stay Well! Focus on you and your family’s health with our robust health and wellbeing programs. State Farm pays most of your healthcare premium, and we offer multiple healthcare plan options, including a high deductible plan. All medical plans provide 100% coverage for in-network preventative care, AND you and your family have access to vision, dental, telemedicine, 24/7 mental health professionals, and much more!
• Develop and Grow! Take advantage of educational benefits like industry leading training programs, top-notch tuition assistance programs, employee resource groups, and mentoring.
• Plan Ahead! Plan for those big moments in life with benefits like fertility/IVF/adoption assistance, college coaching, national discount programs, interactive monthly financial workshops, free financial coaching, and more. You can also start a savings account or consider financing through our State Farm Federal Credit Union!
• Take a Little “You” Time! You will have access to our generous time off policies designed so you can plan around holidays, family events, volunteering, or just to take a relaxing day off. With the opportunity to initially earn up to 20 days annually plus parental leave, paid holidays, celebration day, life leave (40 hours/year), bereavement leave, and community service/education support days, there will be plenty of time for you!
• Give Back! We offer several ways to give back through our Matching Gift Program, Good Neighbor Grant Program, and the Employee Assistance Fund.
• Finish Strong! Plan for retirement using free financial advisors and a 401(k) plan with company contributions of up to 7% of your salary.

Visit our State Farm Careers page for more information on our benefits, locations, and the hiring process of joining the State Farm team!