I was a software programmer/developer on the mainfraim side as a banking project manager before going into SAP implementations.  I started out as a pl1/cobol II CICS developer at Dillard's HQ, largely using VSAM files, then to COBOL ii/DB2 development in healthcare, then as project manager in applications at Boatmens Bancshares/NationsBank coding in cobol II, and supported their check returns system which was in Assembler language on IBM OS 390.  Being on the Software applications side was not nearly as techie as Systems programmer, but I can appreciate the role and interacted at times with the systems programmers.  Also alot of batch jobs, and OS JCL.

Once I got into SAP, it was ABAP/4 and I was mostly functional, but could always make my way around the programs and tables for debugging and in developing tech & functional specs.