Senior Mainframe System Programmer - MQ

Software International (SI) supplies technical talent to a variety of clients ranging from Fortune 100/500/1000 companies to small and mid-sized organizations in Canada/US.

We have a Permanent or 12 month renewable contract as a Senior Mainframe System Programmer - MQ with our large consulting client, working on a long term project for one of Canada's largest banks. This could be an indefinite contract or a permanent role.

Role: Senior Mainframe System Programmer - MQ

Type: Permanent or Long Term Contract

Duration: 12 months to start + possible multiple extensions or a permanent role

Salary or Rate: approximately $175,000 - $225,00 + bonus as permanent employee or $100 - $130/hr + C2C - depending on overall experience

Location: Remote, Toronto, ON, Canada

As a Sr. Mainframe System Programmer, MQ you are responsible for providing technical direction and subject matter expertise to ensure stable, reliable environments for complex sharing initiatives in compliance with established controls, standards, policies, and procedures. You will collaborate with and advise senior management, utilizing your solid understanding of business dynamics to analyze and protect test environment integrity and mitigate risks, present alternative solutions, and recommend solutions using available resources for complex initiatives with key dependencies. You will provide technical leadership, interpret complex information, and coordinate client, provider, and vendor relationships to meet and manage service expectations, aligned to best practices. In addition, you will help to develop the team to maximize individual contributions and professional growth, while functioning effectively with your colleagues.

In this role, you will be primary escalation point for MQ related incidents works closely with internal and external vendors for support. The role is the liaison for all MQ system architecture design, implementation, and testing. The role leads MQ problem identification, analysis and resolution issues. Works closely with application development teams for current, future design and operational requirements. The role plans and participates in annual mainframe systems disaster recovery exercises, and provides on-call support.

How you'll succeed

• Technical Expertise you will leverage your solid technology expertise to review and analyze current client software and requirements to determine the most effective solution to include in business proposals; install, upgrade and customize ISV software tools in a multi-system z/OS mainframe environment, and help to ensure software and hardware remains current to avoid End of Support costs.
• Effective Communication you will work to accomplish organizational goals that are consistent in supporting both IT and Business objectives, communicate effectively and patiently across technology teams to influence teams to adopt solutions to keep critical systems secure and operationally resilient. You will provide and document problem analysis, resolution, and prevention, designing procedures and best practice techniques, using IBM and ISV online tools for opening and managing problem report tracking and resolution. You will actively participate in periodic disaster recovery exercises, maintaining disaster recovery readiness of systems, and monitoring status of systems to proactively prevent issues from occurring.
• Relationship Management You will collaborate with internal business partners in Application Development, Infrastructure, IT Operations, and IT Production Support to accomplish organizational goals that are consistent in supporting both IT and Business objectives. You will work directly with Hardware and Software vendors on solutions, build your network, and deepen existing relationships. You will leverage your verbal, written, and presentation communication skills to build strong partnerships, while influencing participants to mutually beneficial outcomes.

Who you are

• You can demonstrate a minimum of 8-10 years' experience in designing, configuring, implementing and maintaining MQ on the Mainframe. In addition, you also have:
  • Expertise in setting up and configuration of queues and channels for efficiency message processing, while managing queues and listeners to ensure reliability and performance.
  • Demonstrated ability to handle maintenance and upgrades as well as applying maintenance patches to MQ systems.
  • Solid expertise in monitoring the health and performance of the MQ environments including using tooling (e.g. Sysivew, Omegamon or other tools).
  • Good understanding of MQ security including access controls, encryption, and authentication.
  • Experience troubleshooting and problem solving MQ related issues, including message flow interruptions or performance related issues.
  • Experience maintaining comprehensive documentation for MQ environments as well as any operational procedures.
  • Good understanding on how MQ integrates with DB2, IMS and CICS, and have strong knowledge of networking including TCP/IP for MQ communication.