Senior COBOL Developer

Zohorecruit; West Columbia (TX); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Zohorecruit is seeking a Senior Programmer / Team Lead to maintain, support, and develop the Phoenix core system for South Carolina’s drivers and vehicles. The COBOL back end and .NET front end support a government system; this role reports to the COBOL development manager and directly supports the Phoenix application.

The position requires CJIS certification sponsorship, strong independent work skills, and excellent communication with users and stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of COBOL development in Windows client-server environments.
• Leadership experience: guiding a technical software team.
• Strong COBOL, Visual COBOL, and Oracle SQL skills.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to work with business units.

Responsibilities

• Analyze the Phoenix core system and assigned tickets for development and/or modification.
• Take the lead in analyzing and proposing solutions to tickets and projects.
• Partner with business units to develop and translate specifications and obtain sign-off.
• Code, test, promote, and interact with users ensuring solutions meet requirements.
• Provide production support for the Phoenix system.
• Provide daily and weekly status updates to the development manager and business analysts.

Skills

COBOL development

Visual COBOL

Team leadership

Windows client-server

Oracle SQL

Communication skills

Requirements analysis

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science

Tools

Visual Studio .NET

C#

Oracle SQL

Job description

West Columbia, United States | Posted on 10/06/2026

This assignment is for maintenance, support, and development of the core DMV business systems supporting South Carolina’s drivers and vehicles. This system supports legislative and federal requirements for traffic violation processing for South Carolina.

This system is a Client-Server system utilizing COBOL as the back end and .NET as the human interface. The position is within the COBOL development team as the Senior Programmer / Team Lead. This position reports to the SCDMV COBOL development manager and will directly support the SCDMV core business system known as Phoenix.

This position will require CJIS information security certification which SCDMV will sponsor.

Candidate must be able to work independently. Excellent communications skills are required.

Daily duties / responsibilities:

• 1. Analyze the Phoenix core business system and assigned tickets for development and/or system modification.
• 2. Take the lead in analyzing and proposing solutions to assigned tickets and projects
• 3. Partner with business units to develop business specifications, translate those business specifications into technical specifications, and obtain business sign-off of specifications.
• 4. Code, test, promote, and interact with impacted users ensuring that solution meets requirements as documented in the specifications.
• 5. Production support for the Phoenix system
• 6. Provide daily and weekly status to the development manager and business analyst(s)

Required Skills:

• 6+ Years of Experience with Visual and/or Micro Focus COBOL
• Working knowledge of Visual COBOL V9
• 10+ Years of Experience developing and maintaining complex, mission critical applications in a Windows based Client Server environment.
• 5+ Years of Experience Leading a technical software development team in planning and deployment of software systems.
• 10+ Years of Experience coding and testing complex COBOL based business systems in an Oracle SQL database and Windows based client-server environment.
• 5+ Years Experience functioning as the primary contact with business units to develop and review business and technical specifications and ensure delivery of specified functionality.
• 10+ Years of experience with computer system analysis, design, coding, testing, debugging, and implementation techniques and practices for developing new systems or modifying existing systems.

Preferred Skills:

• Familiarity with Microsoft Visual Studio .NET / C# development environment
• Experience working in a Governmental environment

Preferred Certifications:

• Visual COBOL technical certifications

Additional Skills:

• Experience mentoring and guiding less experienced technical colleagues
• Proven proficiency communicating effectively with users, vendors, staff members and management both orally and in writing.
• Ability to plan, define, lead, direct, instruct, and review project work and personnel.

Education:

Prefer Bachelor’s Degree In Computer Science or a closely related discipline with 10 Years of Experience. Experience in a government agency environment is extremely helpful.

Work Mode:

Hybrid. Strong preference for fully onsite presence for the training period. After training, a schedule of two days remote per week at maximum can be discussed with the resource and hiring manager.

Candidate Location:

Candidates must be CURRENT Residents of SC, NC, or GA