Mainframe Developer (COBOL)

📍remote
🕒Full-time
💰$90 – $126/hr
📅Posted July 28, 2026

Job Description

Role Title: COBOL Developer

Role Type: Contractor

Location: Remote

micro1 is engaging COBOL Developers to contribute their expertise to a high-impact customer project. In this role, you'll apply your expertise to help train next-generation AI systems. Your work will shape how models learn, reason, and perform through high-quality, real-world input. No prior experience in AI is required — your domain knowledge is what matters.

Scope of Work

  1. Analyze, interpret, and provide guidance on existing COBOL codebases for the creation of AI training data.

  2. Develop clear, accurate documentation of COBOL logic, workflows, and business rules to inform AI-driven systems.

  3. Evaluate sample code and project scenarios, offering expert feedback and identification of potential edge cases or ambiguities.

  4. Review and annotate COBOL scripts or pseudo-code, supporting the development of robust machine learning datasets.

  5. Contribute to designing test cases and scenario outlines that represent real-world COBOL applications.

  6. Collaborate with project coordinators and other technical experts through effective written and verbal communication.

  7. Ensure technical accuracy and completeness in all submitted materials to enhance AI learning outcomes.

Preferred Qualifications

  1. Proven experience and deep proficiency in COBOL development across diverse business domains.

  2. Strong analytical skills with the ability to decode complex legacy systems and articulate their function.

  3. Demonstrated capability to produce precise, user-friendly technical documentation.

  4. Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with attention to clarity and detail.

  5. Previous experience with large-scale migration, integration, or modernization projects (a plus).

  6. Familiarity with mainframe environments and related tooling.

  7. Ability to work autonomously, manage deliverables, and meet project milestones in a remote setting.

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About Micro1

Micro1 is building the essential infrastructure for the next generation of artificial intelligence, moving beyond the limitations of static datasets to create a dynamic ecosystem where models truly learn to think and act. At its core, the company understands that the path to frontier intelligence isn't paved with synthetic data alone; it requires the nuance, judgment, and contextual awareness that only expert human guidance can provide. By positioning itself at the intersection of human expertise and advanced reinforcement learning, Micro1 is tackling the hardest problem in AI today: teaching models not just to answer questions, but to reason through complexity and take meaningful actions in unpredictable, real-world environments.

This mission comes to life through Realm, Micro1's flagship training environment. Realm functions as a high-fidelity simulation ground where AI agents are immersed in scenarios that closely mirror the messiness of actual human workflows. Rather than relying on abstract benchmarks, Realm forces models to engage in agentic actions, multi-step decisions, digital navigation, coding, and problem-solving that require genuine comprehension. It is within these realistic sandboxes that world-class human data is generated, creating a continuous feedback loop where expert annotators observe, correct, and guide model behavior. This process does more than just fine-tune outputs; it fundamentally elevates a model's underlying reasoning architecture, ensuring that the intelligence developed in training holds up when deployed into the wild.

But training is only half the equation. Micro1 recognizes that the true test of an AI system lies in its production performance, which is where Cortex enters the picture. Cortex is a contextual evaluation platform designed to move beyond superficial accuracy metrics and provide a granular, real-time view of how agents behave in live settings. It doesn't just flag errors; it surfaces the underlying context behind failures, revealing why an agent struggled with a particular user intent or environmental variable. This insight is invaluable for engineering teams, as it transforms evaluation from a passive checkpoint into an active improvement tool. With Cortex, companies can catch degradation early, understand the nuances of edge cases, and feed those learnings directly back into Realm for retraining, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous advancement.

Ultimately, Micro1 is not merely a data lab or an evaluation tool it is a comprehensive intelligence engine that connects the entire lifecycle of model development. From the expert human feedback that sharpens raw capability, to the realistic RL environments that forge robust agentic behavior, to the contextual oversight that ensures reliability in production, Micro1 provides the integrated foundation that AI labs and enterprises desperately need. As the industry races toward truly autonomous systems, Micro1 stands as the critical bridge between laboratory breakthroughs and dependable, real-world impact, ensuring that frontier models do not just perform well on paper, but deliver genuine value in the complex, dynamic world they are meant to serve.