Demand for Mach-II Developers Outstrips Supply
Each year since the Mach-II framework was officially sunset in 2013, its accompanying talent pool has dwindled. However, enterprises and governments continue to rely on Mach-II for critical web applications. The result: steep competition for ever fewer qualified specialists.
Only two of the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) engines originally compatible with Mach-II remain supported in 2025: Adobe ColdFusion and Railo’s open-source successor, Lucee. However, only a fraction of Adobe ColdFusion skills are relevant to Mach-II development — Mach-II’s approach differs significantly from other ColdFusion-based frameworks. Meanwhile, CFML is nowhere near as popular as programming languages like PHP, Ruby, and JavaScript. Thus, finding quality Mach-II developers for maintenance or migration is an ongoing challenge.
This guide helps managers who must hire Mach-II developers by exploring the mix of technical skills needed, providing job description insights, and offering practical questions for vetting candidates at the interview stage. By the end, you’ll know what it takes to hire top Mach-II developers — and alternative strategies to consider if that proves too difficult.
What attributes distinguish quality Mach-II developers from others?
Mach-II software engineers are web developers specializing in event-driven object-oriented programming (OOP). Given their short supply, if their experience with Mach-II is recent enough that they’re able to describe some of its best practices and pitfalls, this is already a distinguishing factor. Another is if they have mentorship experience — legacy technologies often come with a need for sharing knowledge with team members.
Complimentary Skills
The best Mach-II developers have kept their skills with the framework sharp while modernizing their technical expertise with adjacent technologies — many of which have continued to evolve.
ColdFusion: At least some versions of Adobe’s platform released after Mach-II was sunset were compatible with it. A quality candidate will know the difference between versions and the pros and cons of running Mach-II on them.
CFML and CFScript: CFML is central to Mach-II programming, but the server-side language CFScript was also a supported approach and, indeed, preferred by many developers. Quality candidates will be well versed in both languages, which have continued to evolve alongside ColdFusion releases.
ColdSpring: Inspired by Java’s Spring framework, ColdSpring was ColdFusion’s first dependency injection framework and was easy to leverage within Mach-II projects. Top candidates will know ColdSpring and have experience migrating to newer alternatives like WireBox.
HTML, CSS, and JavaScript: Though Mach-II is a back-end technology, it’s almost always used to serve up front-end code. While the back-end stack may be frozen in time, the web browsers receiving its output on end-user devices continue the march of progress, so demonstrably current HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript skills are a sign of a quality Mach-II developer.
SQL and NoSQL databases: As with all back-end technologies, the ability to work with databases is nearly always relevant. Quality candidates will know their way around SQL engines like PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle Database. NoSQL databases like MongoDB are also supported and used in some Mach-II projects.
Cloud providers like AWS, Azure, and GCP: Though many enterprises have extensive on-premises server infrastructure, it’s common enough to migrate Mach-II back-ends to a cloud platform; top candidates are sure to have experience with at least one such project.
Docker: Whether your project uses cloud providers or not — but especially if it does — Docker containers are standard fare for cutting down on “it works on my machine” syndrome and standardizing deployments; quality Mach-II developers will have some familiarity with this.
Git: When core Mach-II development ceased, Git was already the de facto standard for source code version control. Though enterprises are most likely to espouse an alternative like Apache Subversion, IBM DevOps Code ClearCase, or Microsoft Team Foundation Version Control, basic Git skills still show that a candidate takes version control habits seriously.
How can you identify the ideal Mach-II developers for you?
The first step to finding your ideal Mach-II developer is to identify your project requirements and the skill gap among the existing programmers on your team. If you’ve experienced recent turnover and have no in-house Mach-II experts, you might not even know what you’re looking for in the long term — in that case, a freelance consultant specialized in Mach-II can help you develop a project plan.
Assuming you’re augmenting your team’s Mach-II expertise, there are two primary questions. First, years of experience: Are you looking for a (potential) mentor, or does your team have sufficient capacity to take on a protege? Second, does your team plan to continue maintaining their Mach-II codebase as-is, or is there a migration plan?
Mach-II migrations come in multiple flavors: Your team may want to continue using Mach-II but move its infrastructure to the cloud, modernize its front end, or implement a CI/CD pipeline. Alternatively, they may be tasked with replacing Mach-II entirely. Regardless, any project involving migration will need a developer who knows the nuances of the current stack as well as the best practices of all the major components of the new system that they’ll be responsible for.
For example, a Mach-II-to-Node.js API migration will be easiest with someone who knows both, but having an expert in each is a viable strategy — so long as both experts are highly collaborative and have excellent communication skills. And each end of the migration will need a more specific skill match than that: Which framework is the Node.js codebase going to use? Will it rely on advanced TypeScript techniques or just JavaScript?
As for the migration’s current stack, some legacy projects may still be running on defunct CFML engines like Railo (sunset 2015), Open BlueDragon (sunset mid-2024), or even New Atlanta BlueDragon. While Mach-II was designed to be engine-agnostic, engines have their nuances, so a candidate’s experience with your specific stack can help you avoid costly development mistakes.
Even if your project won’t be migrating, you’ll need to know whether you’re hiring for a full-stack developer role or a back-end specialist. Full-stack developers will need to be as familiar as possible with your project’s front-end approach to be effective — but if teamwork can compensate for a front-end skill gap, consider this secondary to their Mach-II knowledge.
How to Write a Mach-II Developer Job Description for Your Project
A detailed, accurate job description is essential for attracting Mach-II developers. Start with a full-stack or back-end developer job description template. Then, clearly define the role’s responsibilities, the expected level of expertise, and the overall migration or maintenance goals. Specify up front whether the position is full-time, part-time, or contract; for remote-friendly roles, include a time zone overlap requirement in line with what your team can accommodate.
Finally, include a detailed list of technical skills needed, such as expertise in CFML, CFScript, or both; HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; and, for full-stack roles, applicable front-end frameworks like React, Angular, or Svelte. Be sure to include the project’s cloud provider if the role will interact with them directly. Leave out tools like Jira that don’t require significant onboarding time.
If your job posting isn’t attracting enough candidates, consider changing the title to leave out Mach-II and emphasize back-end web developers specializing in event-driven OOP. Then, in the job description, mention the need to adapt to Mach-II best practices. Specify whether the new hire will receive mentorship in this or will be expected to manage their own Mach-II learning journey without causing production downtime.
What are the most important Mach-II developer interview questions?
Mach-II development skills are layered: Beyond the framework itself, your interview should include an assessment of software development, web development, back-end programming, and ColdFusion skills. Depending on your development team’s existing skill gaps, you may also need to mix in some questions on the tech stacks of any planned migrations (e.g., to Amazon Web Services infrastructure) or integrations (e.g., with a Python back end or Android front end). Either way, the following discussion topics will allow you to evaluate a candidate’s soft skills alongside their technical savvy.
How does Mach-II’s event-driven approach compare to traditional MVC frameworks?
Strong candidates should be able to explain Mach-II’s emphasis on loosely coupled components. Traditional MVC often relies on direct method calls between controllers and models, also known as explicit invocation. In contrast, Mach-II (the “II” standing for “implicit invocation”) uses indirect component communication. Its event-based messaging increases maintainability and simplifies automated testing.
Candidates should be able to explain how event listeners and filters work when handling user interactions and to describe the advantages of Mach-II’s declarative, XML-based configuration for event mapping.
How would you optimize database interactions in a Mach-II application using MySQL [or Oracle, SQL Server, etc.]?
Mach-II doesn’t handle database interactions directly, so developers must know how to use CFML and/or CFScript data access features effectively. Techniques like connection pooling, query parameterization, and query caching will apply to any SQL engine. But others, such as query optimization and table indexing, can vary considerably depending on your project’s RDBMS.
A well-rounded response might also discuss leveraging advanced PostgreSQL or SQL Server features, or integrating NoSQL databases like MongoDB or Elasticsearch, for specific use cases like full-text or geospatial searching.
How would you approach problem-solving a Mach-II application running on a Linux server?
A strong answer will cover tracking event execution using tags like <cfdump> to inspect variables, checking not only application.log but also /var/log/dmesg and /var/log/syslog for errors, and using tools like iostat to identify performance bottlenecks.
CFML engine administrator logs are a good start, but knowing OS-specific debugging techniques can sometimes be more effective at getting to the root of a problem.
Why do companies hire Mach-II developers?
Companies hire Mach-II developers to maintain or migrate legacy Mach-II codebases. The niche nature of Mach-II development makes it worth the price since the alternative involves much steeper investments in mentorship outsourcing and fastidious project management.
With this guide’s advice on assessing developers, your company is ready to take a strategic approach to maintaining and evolving its Mach-II applications over the long term.
