Architect — AS/400 (IBM i), Synon & RPG

An architect who can open an unfamiliar IBM i estate and make sense of it — the code, the designs behind it and the platform it runs on — and explain it clearly to the people deciding what happens next.
EXPERIENCE: 10–15 years
LEVEL: Senior Architect (hands-on)
PRACTICE: Midrange modernisation
LOCATION / TYPE: Chennai/NOIDA · Full-time / Consulting
THE ROLE
This is a comprehension and analysis role, not a greenfield build role. Our modernisation work starts with understanding what banks actually run today: large RPG and Synon / CA 2E application estates on AS/400 (IBM i), often thinly documented, with the original authors long gone. You will be the person who reads that code, reconstructs the design and platform architecture, and turns it into findings, documentation and recommendations that engineers, client architects and executives can act on — increasingly with AI-assisted analysis tools working alongside you.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
Read and comprehend large RPG (RPG III / RPG/400, RPG IV / ILE, free-format) and CL code bases, including Synon / CA 2E-generated programs and the 2E model behind them (functions, action diagrams, access paths, files).
Reverse-engineer and document application designs: program flows, data models (DB2 for i, DDS, physical / logical files), batch and job streams, interfaces and integration points, and the business rules embedded in code.
Analyse AS/400 architecture end to end — work management, subsystems, job scheduling, object / library model, security, journaling and commitment control — and assess fitness and risk.
Produce estate assessments: inventory, dependency and impact analysis, complexity hotspots, dead code, modernisation options and recommendations, with clear traceability back to source.
Validate AI-assisted code-analysis and knowledge-extraction output against the real system, and feed corrections back to the platform team.
Present findings to client architects, business stakeholders and leadership in plain language.
MUST HAVE
10–15 years hands-on on AS/400 / IBM i (iSeries, System i), including several years in architect, design-authority or technical-lead roles.
Deep RPG expertise across RPG III / RPG/400, RPG IV / ILE RPG (RPGLE) and free-format, plus CL, DDS, subfiles and embedded SQL.
Synon / CA 2E: can navigate the model and read generated code — functions, action diagrams, access paths, templates — not just the generated RPG.
DB2 for i: physical and logical files, access paths, SQL, journaling; comfortable reconstructing a data model from files and programs.
Platform architecture: subsystems, job queues and scheduling, authorities and security, integration (data queues, ODBC/JDBC, web services, MQ).
A track record of understanding and documenting systems you did not build, with strong written and verbal communication.
NICE TO HAVE
Knowledge of AI — LLMs, AI-assisted code analysis or generation, agentic tools — and a grounded view of where they help and where they fail on legacy code. A strong plus.
Modernisation delivery: re-hosting, re-platforming or refactoring IBM i workloads to cloud (AWS, Azure) or Java / .NET targets.
Analysis tooling: X-Analysis, Hawkeye Pathfinder, ARCAD, RDi, Git on IBM i; CA Plex.
Banking, payments or core-banking domain knowledge.
Client-facing assessment or due-diligence engagements.

Work arrangement
No