Mainframe z/OS Systems Programmer/Analyst

Summary or Position description:

• Planning future enhancement and discussing current defects with application support, application development, and external business partners.
• Monitoring systems for abnormal CPU consumption and transaction volume
• Upgrading and maintaining CICS and OEM vendor products
• Adding new resource definitions to the CSD for transactions, files, and Java components

Top skills:

• CICS
• z/OS
• JCL
• ISPF
• RACF is preferred

Minimum required work experience:

• 8 years IT experience including extensive systems programming experience.

Job/class description:

• Responsible for ensuring all systems programming decisions maintain the integrity of the overall systems infrastructure. Write or debug programs to maintain and control computer systems software, such as operating systems, networked systems, and database systems. Provide technical and disaster recovery expertise for systems software.
• Diagnose, isolate, and debug software problems and perform problem resolution. Identify issues that the vendor is responsible for and refer those issues appropriately.
• Review and design system software and hardware builds analyzing system options and the impact on the overall systems infrastructure. Develop and document the framework for integration and implementation for changes to technical standards.
• Coordinate installation, testing, and maintenance of systems software. Schedule system downtime in a way that minimizes user impact.
• Review customer requests, security patches, and audit requirements for additions or changes to systems, and evaluate feasibility to determine if/how to handle the request while maintaining an adequate/appropriate overall systems infrastructure. To determine if requested changes are possible, review system capabilities, workflow, and scheduling limitations.
• Provide technical guidance to project team areas as appropriate. May evaluate vendor-supplied software packages and make recommendations to IT management. In coordination with Project Leads and senior level staff, provide input on proposals that could potentially impact systems.
• Assist in the establishment and implementation of standards and guidelines that guide the design of technology solutions across the enterprise.
• Provide technical and disaster recovery support for systems software.

Required knowledge, skills, and abilities:

• Strong analytical and logical thinking skills.
• Thorough understanding of operating systems and foundation architecture. Extensive knowledge of systems programming, graphical user interfaces, control languages, development, quality assurance, and integration methodologies.
• Advanced knowledge of currently utilized programming productivity tools and their use.
• Advanced knowledge/skills in analyzing system software and making recommendations for performance enhancements.
• Standard office equipment.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills
• Adaptable: the client supports a number of customer areas and several federal agencies.
• The client operates in an ever-evolving workspace.
• Team player: it is a small team, but it works close together and expects high accountability.

Preferred skills:

• DB2 and IMS: integration with CICS. Not looking for a Database Systems Programmer.
• MQ: integration with CICS, but competency of MQ Administration would be welcomed.
• Rexx: the client supports over 500 CICS regions so we heavily depend on Rexx for in-house automation and utilities.
• COBOL development: having COBOL application developer experience would be a great benefit.
• RACF: understands CICS security in a RACF environment, and knowledge of Federal STIG guidelines. 

Work environment:

• There are 5 individuals on the team.
• The client is currently migrating several data centers for a federal contract and modernizing the Corporate data center to support higher availability.
• The client is heavily invested in the mainframe and looking for candidates to bring fresh perspectives and ideas into our intricate mainframe environment.

Required education/equivalencies:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or other job-related degree;
• OR, Associate’s degree in CS, IT, or other job-related degree plus 2 years of work-related experience;
• OR, 4 years job-related work experience (total 12 years without a degree)