Modernization Architect

Who you will work with

As a Senior Principal at Slalom, you will help clients accelerate large scale technology transformation by turning decades-old mainframe code into agile, cloud-native systems. This role blends deep systems understanding of z/OS with modern cloud, DevOps, and AI-assisted engineering practices. You’ll work across multiple domains, from code analysis and business-logic extraction to automated refactoring and re-platforming helping enterprises transition mission-critical workloads to hyperscaler infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• Understand, extract and document business logic from mainframe applications.
• Modernize and refactor legacy code using automated transformation tools and AI coding agents.
• Reimagine monolithic systems into cloud-native microservices and event-driven architectures.
• Build, containerize, and deploy workloads to AWS (or other hyperscaler platforms).
• Prototype modernization accelerators and proof-of-concepts using LLMs, code analysis tools, and custom pipelines.
• Collaborate with architects, operators, and data engineers to ensure secure and efficient modernization patterns.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience developing or operating on IBM mainframes (z/OS).
• Proficiency in one or more mainframe languages: COBOL, PL/I, HLASM, JCL, etc.
• Knowledge of z/OS fundamentals: CICS, DB2, VSAM, batch scheduling, system utilities.
• Experience deploying workloads to a major cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Experience leveraging LLMs and coding agents in software development workflows.
• Strong prototyping and POC development capability in dynamic environments.
• Thrives in fast-moving, collaborative and entrepreneurial teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with Code-as-Data and structured intermediate representation (IR) concepts.
• Experience parsing or analyzing source grammars (ANTLR4, Tree-Sitter, recursive descent, etc.).
• Experience with modernization frameworks such as AWS Blu Age or AWS Mainframe Modernization (Transform for z/OS).
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, IaC (CloudFormation/Terraform), and container orchestration (Kubernetes/OpenShift).
• Understanding of legacy data integration (DB2, VSAM, IMS) with modern cloud data stores.
• Experience designing automated test harnesses for workload equivalence validation.
• Awareness of enterprise security and IAM frameworks (RACF, IAM roles, encryption-at-rest/in-transit).
• Experience fine-tuning or prompting code-centric LLMs (e.g., Amazon Q Developer, Bedrock, Claude) for code translation, documentation, or rule extraction.
• Understanding of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) patterns, vector databases, and agentic orchestration for code analysis pipelines.
• Consulting or systems-integration experience.

About Us

Slalom is a fiercely human business and technology consulting company that leads with outcomes to bring more value, in all ways, always. From strategy through delivery, our agile teams across 52 offices in 12 countries partner with clients to co-create powerful customer experiences, modern ways of working, and meaningful impact. What sets us apart? We believe work should be challenging and fulfilling, not perfect, but possible. That’s why we prioritize purpose, flexibility, connection, and recognition, so our people can thrive and love what they do, most days.

Pay

Slalom is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices. For this role, we are hiring at the following levels and targeted base pay salary ranges:

• San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, Orange County, Washington DC, Houston, NJ, NY, Westchester, Boston: $186,000 to $257,000.
• East Bay, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley: $203,000-$281,000.
• All other Slalom locations in the US: $171,000-$236,000.

In addition, individuals may be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. Actual compensation will depend upon an individual’s skills, experience, qualifications, location, and other relevant factors. The salary pay range is subject to change and may be modified at any time.

Benefits

• Meaningful time off and paid holidays.
• Parental leave.
• 401(k) with a match.
• A range of choices for highly subsidized health, dental, & vision coverage.
• Adoption and fertility assistance.
• Short/long-term disability.
• Yearly $350 reimbursement account for any well-being-related expenses.
• Discounted home, auto, and pet insurance.