Principal Engineer - Enterprise COBOL Application

Broadcom Inc.; Durham (NC); On-site; USD 129,400 - 207,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Discretionary bonus

Equity grants

401(k) with company match

Medical/dental/vision

Job summary

Broadcom Inc. in Durham, NC, is seeking a hands-on principal engineer to own, maintain, and expand an enterprise COBOL application used for test data generation, complex scenario simulation, and demo environments across Broadcom’s mainframe software division.

You will balance run and build, lead multi-team initiatives, write COBOL, and guide modernization and testing strategies while collaborating with QA and automation teams.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, with a heavy focus on enterprise COBOL development within IBM mainframe or mainframe-emulation environments.
• Bachelor’s and 12+ years of related experience; or Master’s degree and 10+ years of related experience.
• High proficiency in building applications that leverage mainframe subsystems (Db2, IMS, CICS, IDMS, Datacom).
• Experience leading technical initiatives across multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Experience using Source Code Management tools such as Endevor and GitHub.

Responsibilities

• Own the Roadmap: Define, prioritize, and manage the backlog for the COBOL application, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of our QA, automation, and demo teams.
• Balance "Run" vs. "Build": Decide when to patch existing logic and when to engineer new, scalable capabilities to support modern testing frameworks.
• Code & Implement: Write, test, and deploy COBOL code to add new features and enhance the application’s capabilities.
• Use What We Build: Leverage products from the MSD DevOps solution to analyze, build, debug, manage, and validate the applications.
• Environment Support: Ensure the applications remain stable, reliable, and integrated with our modern CI/CD pipelines and middleware.
• Internal Consultant: Act as the go-to technical advisor for other product teams needing to build test environments and demo scenarios using the applications.
• Governance: Establish a process for community contributions from multiple internal organizations.

Skills

COBOL mainframe

Leadership

Agile

GitHub

Education

Bachelor's degree

Master's degree

12+ years related experience

Tools

Endevor

Job description

Mainframe systems are at the heart of the digital economy, with 80% of the world's structured corporate data residing or originating on mainframes, and 55% of all enterprise applications hitting the mainframe to complete transactions. Our industry-leading software solutions are critical to many Fortune 1000 companies. We are seeking a hands-on, highly skilled principal engineer to own, maintain, and expand our enterprise COBOL application. Unlike traditional legacy production systems, this specific platform is a critical internal-only tool used to generate test data, simulate complex business scenarios, and support demo environments across Broadcom’s mainframe software division. In this role, you will be the absolute authority on this system. You will act as a "player-coach"—getting your hands dirty in the mainframe codebase while simultaneously serving as the main subject matter expert (SME) to advise our division on COBOL integration, modernization, and testing strategies.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the Roadmap: Define, prioritize, and manage the backlog for the COBOL application, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of our QA, automation, and demo teams.
• Balance "Run" vs. "Build": Decide when to patch existing logic and when to engineer new, scalable capabilities to support modern testing frameworks.
• Code & Implement: Write, test, and deploy COBOL code to add new features and enhance the application’s capabilities.
• Use What We Build: Leverage products from the MSD DevOps solution to analyze, build, debug, manage, and validate the applications.
• Environment Support: Ensure the applications remain stable, reliable, and integrated with our modern CI/CD pipelines and middleware.
• Internal Consultant: Act as the go-to technical advisor for other product teams needing to build test environments and demo scenarios using the applications.
• Governance: Establish a process for community contributions from multiple internal organizations.

Required Technical and Professional Expertise

• 12+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, with a heavy focus on enterprise COBOL development within IBM mainframe or mainframe-emulation environments.
• Bachelors and 12+ years of related experience; or Masters degree and 10+ years of related experience.
• High proficiency in building applications that leverage mainframe subsystems (Db2, IMS, CICS, IDMS, Datacom).
• Experience leading technical initiatives across multiple teams and stakeholders.
• Experience using Source Code Management tools such as Endevor and GitHub.

Soft Skills & Professional Competencies

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to deliver succinct technical presentations and write clear documentation for diverse stakeholders.
• Excellent problem-solving, structural debugging, and data-driven analysis capabilities.
• High emotional intelligence, a hunger for learning emerging technologies, and the capacity to give and receive constructive feedback.
• Experience in Agile software development methodology.
• Ability to work independently and in a team-oriented environment.
• Open to learning new technologies and programming languages.

Compensation and Benefits

• The annual base salary range for this position is USD 129,400.00 To USD 207,000.00.
• As a valued member of our team, you'll be eligible for a discretionary annual bonus and the opportunity to receive not only a competitive new hire equity grant, but also annual equity awards, connecting your success directly to the company's growth. All subject to relevant plan documents and award agreements.
• The company follows all applicable laws for Paid Family Leave and other leaves of absence.
• Broadcom offers a competitive and comprehensive benefits package: Medical, dental and vision plans, 401(K) participation including company matching, Employee Stock Purchase Program (ESPP), Employee Assistance Program (EAP), company paid holidays, paid sick leave and vacation time.

Broadcom is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We will consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, disability status, medical condition, pregnancy, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

We will also consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records consistent with local law.

If you are located outside USA, please be sure to fill out a home address as this will be used for future correspondence.

Welcome! Thank you for your interest in Broadcom! We are a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions.