Senior Mainframe Systems Programmer - MQ

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About Role:

Provide premium MQ system programming support and services to Ensono mainframe clients.

The successful candidate will perform mainframe MQ software upgrades coupled with administration and tuning to support our customers' MQ environments. The individual will need to work with vendor personnel to achieve timely solutions of MQ related problems.

Key Areas of Focus for this Role

• Fulfill customer service requests for mainframe z/OS customers in a timely manner as they pertain to MQ TS/TM and related OEM software products.

• Follow procedures for installing MQ and related OEM software products efficiently and according to best practices and Ensono standards (for productivity/scalability purposes).

• Provide primary support for reported problems related to MQ and related OEM software products

• Provide support on 24 x 7 x 365 basis across multiple time zones.

• Provide key support for customer migration services (new customer transitions) as they pertain to MQ and related OEM software products.

• Communicate to both customer and management the status of issues at intervals during resolution process.

• Maintain documentation of issue cause, action, and resolution in the designated problem tracking system.

• Assist the assigned project manager in the migration of newly acquired customers such that all technical hurdles are addressed in a timely manner and do not impede the expected progress of the transition nor the targeted migration date.

• In joint co-operation with the Disaster Recovery Services and other technical teams, successfully execute tasks associated with any given customer's disaster recovery plans.

• Adhere to a schedule that efficiently manages resources and allows timely implementations.

• Follow ITSM change control procedures

• Experience in setting up MQ Objects for efficient message processing, while managing queues and listeners to ensure reliability and performance.

• Ability to handle MQ Upgrades, RSU Upgrade, and APPLYING HIPERs/PTF to the MQ systems and Mainframe Disaster Recovery.

• Expertise in monitoring the health and performance of the MQ environments.

• Good understanding of MQ security including access controls, SSL, encryption, RACF 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.

• Clear understanding on how MQ integrates with DB2 and CICS and have strong knowledge of networking including TCP/IP for MQ communication.

• Good understanding of Queue manager performance tuning, Queue Sharing Group, SMDS Performance tuning.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree required and/or equivalent work experience.

• 8+ years of professional experience in MQ administration and systems programming support.

• Experience in building new MQ regions

• Experience in installation/upgrade/customization of MQS and OEM products

• Experience with configuring and managing MQ environments

• SMPE Knowledge and experience

• Ability to develop innovation, strategies, processes, and best practices in software management

• Experience with reviewing new versions of MQ for functionality, advising how they benefit the client

• Strong analytical skills and understanding of MQ concepts, configuration and tailoring.

• Thorough working knowledge of products used to monitor performance of MQ regions.

• Support planned (disaster recovery) and unplanned (emergency) database recovery activities

• Knowledgeable in best practices of software management, maintenance, and documentation

• Experience with establishing policies and procedures pertaining to MQ management, DR, security, maintenance, and utilization

• Ability to evaluate change requests and determine impact to assigned clients and troubleshooting and solving production MQ related issues.

Other Qualifications

• Self-motivated and able to work independently.

• Demonstrated ability to respond quickly and effectively to support requests from multiple clients

• Must be able to multi-task and work under short deadlines and in high pressure situations.

• Excellent communication skills (written, verbal and presentations)

• Ability to work as part of a team, as well as independently.

JR010386