Senior Software Engineer - Akana Sola

Position Summary

Perforce is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join the Akana Sola team. Sola is Akana's mainframe API enablement product, exposing COBOL, CICS, and IMS/DB2 assets as REST/SOAP APIs. This is a genuine growth opportunity: mainframe skills are increasingly rare and highly valued, and this role is built for an engineer with a strong Java/API foundation who wants to develop a differentiated, in-demand specialization in mainframe technologies.

You'll work directly with, and be mentored by, senior engineers on a small, highly specialized team maintaining a product that supports mission-critical customer applications. We work in an agile product development process with core values of results, teamwork, ownership, quality of work, problem solving, and service to customers.

Responsibilities

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 6+ years of hands-on software development experience.
• Strong foundation in Java and API technologies.
• Genuine interest in specializing in mainframe/legacy systems technology as a long-term career direction.

Core Technical Skills - Java, APIs & Modern Stack

• Working knowledge of Java, used for the Sola IDE and one of the Sola runtime implementations.
• Experience with RESTful and SOAP web services, including how they're designed, secured, and exposed from backend systems.
• Familiarity or hands-on experience with API management gateways (e.g., Akana, Apigee, MuleSoft, Kong, or similar) - Sola's core purpose is exposing mainframe assets as governed, gateway-managed APIs.
• Working knowledge of JavaScript, used extensively within the Sola IDE.
• Experience with SQL/NoSQL databases, including DB2, Oracle, MS SQL, and/or MySQL.
• Working knowledge of CI/CD tools and pipelines.

Requirement

Mainframe & Legacy Systems - Growth Track (Mentorship & Training Provided)

• These skills will be developed on the job under mentorship from our senior mainframe engineers. Any prior exposure is a strong plus, but eagerness to learn matters more than existing depth.
• COBOL - the primary language, by volume, behind the legacy Sola runtime that all customers rely on.
• CICS application development, as Sola runs under CICS and uses several of its system functions.
• DB2 programming (embedded SQL, performance-aware query design).
• JCL (Job Control Language) for mainframe batch processing.
• Batch COBOL, since Sola supports exposing batch programs as APIs and calling APIs from batch programs.
• IBM MQ Series as a supported transport layer within Sola.
• Mainframe Assembler, used for performance-critical functions such as parsing, the DOM API, and data conversions, and Natural, used for generating Natural Language artifacts - deeper, longer-term growth areas.

Development Practices

• Experience working with Git and version control systems.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban.
• Ability to independently learn, manage, and enhance existing codebases, including long-lived legacy systems.
• Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting abilities, with the composure to work under pressure - Sola customers run it in mission-critical applications, so issues often need time-critical resolution.

Communication & Collaboration

• Excellent verbal communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to support product demos and pre-sales conversations as needed.
• Self-driven with a strong sense of ownership.
• Willingness to participate in on-call/off-hours rotation to support customers' mission-critical use of Sola.

Nice to Have

• UI development skills: JavaScript frameworks, Bootstrap, jQuery, etc.
• Experience with Python scripting or development.
• Familiarity with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Exposure to Linux on mainframe (zLinux), as some customers may elect to run the Sola Java runtime there.