Mainframe Technical Specialist

About the role

We are seeking an experienced Mainframe Technical Specialist to design, develop, maintain, troubleshoot, and support mission-critical mainframe applications and systems. The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on experience with IBM z/OS, COBOL, JCL, DB2, CICS, VSAM, and enterprise batch processing environments.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, enhance, and maintain enterprise mainframe applications.
• Analyze business and technical requirements and translate them into scalable mainframe solutions.
• Develop and maintain COBOL programs, JCL, DB2 queries, CICS transactions, and VSAM files.
• Perform application troubleshooting, debugging, root-cause analysis, and production support.
• Analyze system and application failures and implement permanent corrective solutions.
• Develop and optimize batch processing jobs and production workflows.
• Monitor batch jobs, resolve job failures, and ensure successful completion of critical processing.
• Work with production support teams to resolve high-priority incidents and service-impacting issues.
• Participate in application modernization and mainframe transformation initiatives.
• Perform code reviews and ensure development standards and best practices are followed.
• Analyze application performance and identify opportunities for optimization.
• Develop technical specifications, design documents, and implementation plans.
• Perform unit testing, integration testing, regression testing, and production validation.
• Coordinate with QA teams to resolve defects and support testing activities.
• Work with DBAs on DB2 performance, SQL optimization, database design, and data-related issues.
• Work with system administrators and infrastructure teams on z/OS-related issues.
• Participate in production deployments, release management, and change-management activities.
• Provide technical guidance and mentoring to junior developers.
• Participate in on-call or after-hours production support when required.
• Maintain technical documentation, application diagrams, support procedures, and knowledge articles.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise security, audit, and change-control requirements.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 8+ years of hands-on Mainframe development and support experience.
• Strong experience with COBOL, JCL, DB2, CICS, and VSAM.
• Strong understanding of IBM z/OS environments.
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills.
• Ability to work independently in a large enterprise environment.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver within deadlines.

Qualifications

• Strong problem-solving and analytical abilities.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.
• Strong troubleshooting skills.
• Ability to work effectively with technical and business teams.
• Strong ownership and accountability.
• Ability to work under pressure during production incidents.
• Attention to detail.
• Strong documentation skills.
• Ability to mentor and collaborate with team members.