Computer Jobs

Computer Programming

When I started working at Uniroyal in 1968 there were no others in the department who had any degree or even college-level courses in the computer field. It was just too new at the time. Most of the people in the department had no degree and those that did had degrees in other fields such as mathematics or business. The only formal training in computers was through classes offered by IBM.

There were three main job titles being used. The first was “Programmer” and was for people who wrote the code that was needed (in a variety of computer languages such as COBOL, Autocoder, and RPG). These folks for the most part had no degree, only a few classes.

The second job title, going up the scale, was “Systems Analyst”. The Systems Analyst was the person who wrote the specifications for the programs that were then turned over to the Programmers. Most of these folks had some significant background in the part of the business that they supported (accounting, payroll, production, etc.) so they could gather the requirements from the business and turn the requirements into the necessary program specifications. Some of these folks had degrees, but others had many years of background in their subject area.

The final job title was “Programmer Analyst”. These folks were capable of doing both the job of the Programmer and the Systems Analyst and so were highly valued.

I was only a summer intern the first two summers, but when I began working for Uniroyal full-time in 1971 I started directly as a Senior Systems Analyst as I was so much more skilled than anyone else in the department. However, I still had to pick up the necessary business background before they promoted me to Programmer Analyst the following year.

Other companies had different philosophies and different reasons for using the job titles that they did, but regardless of where I worked those first few years I was one of the few with an actual college degree in the computer science field.

Computer Operators

It takes more than a bunch of programmer and systems analysts to make the computer a useful machine. The job of the computer operator is also very important. Most operators did not have college degrees. And so they were often (unfairly) looked down upon by those with degrees. But I did not feel that way.

Part of my first few weeks of training at Uniroyal was to spend some time in the computer room learning what the operators did. I was essentially used as a junior operator trainee. I got to mount tapes, put paper into the printer when it ran out, separate the printed jobs and put the output into the appropriate bin to be picked up, etc. The goal was for me to learn what made for a “good” program/system. There were a bunch of little things like having the output of one program on tape drive 3, then instructing the computer to not unload it (i.e. rewind to the beginning but not past the physical end of the tape), then having the next program in the stream use the tape still on drive 3. That saved the operator having to rethread the tape, or having to move it to a different drive and thread it there. These little things not only made the operators happier as it save them needless work, but increased the overall throughput of the entire staff.

I always viewed this part of my training as extremely valuable and always did whatever I could to keep the operators “on my side”. That was I also had them as my ally whenever I might need a special favor or an extra run one evening.