I think mainframe, I breathe mainframe, I am mainframe.

Thierry Vande Voorde

Sogeti Belgium, Mainframe Consultant

I started at Sogeti sometime in 2005. When I had to leave my previous company for budget reasons, I was immediately contacted by a couple of companies. One of them, of course, was Sogeti who said they’d heard nice things about me and wanted to meet. The interview went very well and was very informal. We didn’t talk much about money or my personal ambition, but more about the industry’s challenges, where Sogeti was going, and how the company could use my skills to extend its services portfolio.

Yet, at that time, Sogeti was looking for mainframe people, they had this vision that mainframes were becoming something huge again. Despite the fact that the last few years mainframes were perceived as something of a ‘letdown’, IBM was still saying that they were going to be great, that there would be a lot of work and they needed companies to support their business growth. That really had an impact on me; I felt I needed a stimulus, a driving force, a company that said: “We are going to invest; we are going to do this stuff, and we’ll try to be the best at it”. And for me, that business was, and still is, the mainframe. Mainframe is my expertise.

So it was pretty obvious that it had to be Sogeti.

Immediately after I started working for Sogeti, I was interviewed by one of their clients, that runs settlement systems for domestic and international banking transactions. Originally I was a systems engineer, specializing in security, and the client needed somebody for security. So that’s where my Sogeti career started. And since then, they have renewed my contract a number of times, so that’s very gratifying of course. 

Having started as an operator, at the lowest level in the mainframe environment, I have evolved into a mainframe systems engineer, which means installing and maintaining systems, both software and hardware. I still specialize in security, and I also give courses for IBM, which is a nice change from my everyday work as a security expert. The SMPE Workshop, z/OS Installation and RACF courses are mainly given by me since 2001, not only in Belgium, but also occasionally in Luxemburg and in the Netherlands.

So basically, my career is 13 years of mainframe – and only mainframe! It’s not so much that I am not interested in Windows or other platforms, because we work on those platforms as well. But it’s just a passion, a passion for mainframe technology in particular. I went to IBM in Montpellier where they assemble these mainframes, and, you know,

I was like a kid in a candy store; my eyes were sparkling. It was probably a bit nerdy, but for me, it is one of the most amazing pieces of hardware that exist. I think mainframe, I breathe mainframe, I am mainframe.

I think that makes me really driven, a sort of Mr Mainframe!

When we talk about mainframe, we talk about consolidation. Take all those little parts of the infrastructure and put them on a mainframe. In 1991, some big guy in the IT world predicted that “the last mainframe will be unplugged on March 15, 1996.” —Stewart Alsop, Infoworld, March 1991. Now I don’t want to idealize mainframes, but, so many years later, they are getting bigger and bigger and are more alive than ever.

Of course, we are facing another challenge now, the ageing of people having extensive knowledge and experience on mainframes. I am 38 years now and they still call me ‘the Kid’. At Sogeti, they anticipated that problem, and that’s why we came up with the idea of a Mainframe Academy, where we teach young people the mainframe technology. This initiative is now being copied by IBM and others. The important thing about it is that it’s a long-term plan.

You need about seven years to train somebody on a mainframe, about the same time as it takes to become a doctor. We have a duty to pass on these skills to the younger generation because mainframes will still be around for a long time.

And the youngsters are really taking to it.

What I really like is the contact with the client. When you start with a customer, you never know when it’s going to stop. That’s mainframe. They ask you for three months, and you stay for one year, then two! I know some people who have been working for ten years for the same company, as a consultant. You get so involved in all these projects, and most of the time you are working ‘out on the edge’ where nobody has gone before; nobody has done it before, it’s new, and they want you to do it. It’s quite important to understand that the customer puts his trust in you, and that’s why we are brought in – our expertise.

And support is everywhere. Within Sogeti we have developed a number of communities. When you need expertise, when you have questions, when you need somebody to train you, you can ask the competence centers. The new name for the Sogeti mainframe competence center will be “Destination Z”. If it’s really urgent or you have a very interesting question, then you gather together some people, have some meetings, presentations, and you can ask your questions and you get the answers.

The mainframe community within Sogeti is very close, everybody knows everybody. You can share your ideas, there’s always somebody you can contact to help you.

People from Sogeti, people from IBM, they all share their knowledge.

The first feeling I had when I came to Sogeti was, and still is, really important. You feel that they look after their people. Of course you have to work, you have to generate business, you have to make money, but it’s also that they see the value in you and they give in return. For the moment, life at Sogeti is close to perfect. I’ve got this customer who ‘loves’ me – always nice to know – and I know that Sogeti is happy with my work.

Although most of the time I’m at the client’s site, Sogeti does not forget about me. They contact me regularly; I haven’t become invisible! And that’s very important to me. Under these circumstances, it’s easy to do the extra things without expecting anything in return. Nobody asks me to do it, but I just get on and do it, finding new opportunities. When you feel good in a company, that’s important. They are patient, you’re given a second chance; that’s really appreciated. They say: “We don’t invest in technology per se, we don’t invest in nice-looking furniture. We invest in the people who bring in the money. You are the tools of Sogeti, so we’re investing in you.”

As for the future, I think I’m good at communicating; I have good technical skills, so maybe that might lead me to a Management role in the future, or maybe in Sales – in the mainframe area of course!

I have good prospects, but in the meantime I will keep on developing my skills in the mainframe field because that never ends. There are always new challenges.