Senior Mainframe CICS System Administrator (MQ)- Remote

Required Skills

• 15+ years of experience administering IBM Mainframe environments.
• Strong hands-on experience with IBM CICS Transaction Server (TS 5.3/5.5/5.6).
• Extensive knowledge of z/OS, MVS, JES2, and UNIX System Services (USS).
• Experience creating and maintaining CICS Regions, CSD, and resource definitions using CEDA, CEMT, and CICS Explorer.
• Hands-on experience with CICSPlex SM administration and workload management.
• Strong knowledge of JCL, PROC libraries, GDGs, SORT utilities, IDCAMS, IEBGENER, and IEFBR14.
• Experience with TSO/ISPF, SDSF, IOF, File-AID, SPUFI, and QMF.
• Strong knowledge of VSAM (KSDS, ESDS, RRDS), SMS, DFSMS, DFHSM, zFS, and storage management.
• Experience administering RACF security, started task IDs, dataset security, and keyring management.
• Experience with SMP/E, including PTF, APAR, RSU installation, and maintenance.
• Experience supporting DB2, IMS, and IBM MQ integrated CICS environments.
• Knowledge of CA7/CA Workload Automation or Tivoli Workload Scheduler (TWS).
• Experience using monitoring tools such as OMEGAMON, RMF, SMF, NetView, and IBM Health Checker.
• Strong troubleshooting skills for CICS regions, JCL failures, storage issues, and system performance.

Key Responsibilities

• Administer and support IBM CICS Transaction Server environments across multiple production LPARs.
• Install, configure, maintain, and upgrade CICS regions and related system software.
• Manage CICS resource definitions using CEDA, CEMT, and CSD.
• Configure and maintain CICSPlex SM for workload balancing and region management.
• Perform system maintenance using SMP/E, including PTF, APAR, and RSU implementation.
• Monitor system health, availability, and performance using OMEGAMON, RMF, and SMF.
• Troubleshoot CICS transaction failures, abends, storage issues, and batch processing problems.
• Develop and maintain JCL, automation scripts (REXX/CLIST), and operational procedures.
• Administer RACF security, SSL/TLS configurations, and access controls.
• Manage VSAM datasets, storage allocation, backups, recovery, and disaster recovery procedures.
• Support CA7/TWS scheduling and optimize enterprise batch processing.
• Coordinate production implementations, IPL activities, and planned maintenance windows.
• Work closely with application developers, database administrators, network teams, and infrastructure teams to resolve production issues.
• Participate in 24x7 production support and on-call rotations.
• Prepare technical documentation, operational runbooks, and system standards.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, or Utilities environments.
• IBM z/OS Systems Administration certification.
• IBM CICS System Administration certification.
• Experience with PCI DSS, SOC 2, NERC CIP, or other regulated environments.
• Knowledge of Disaster Recovery, High Availability, and Capacity Planning.
• Experience with CICS Web Services, TLS/SSL, and API integrations.
• Familiarity with automation using REXX, CLIST, or shell scripting.

Technical Environment

• IBM z/OS
• IBM CICS Transaction Server (TS 5.3, 5.5, 5.6)
• CICSPlex SM
• JES2
• MVS
• UNIX System Services (USS)
• JCL
• TSO/ISPF
• SDSF
• IOF
• File-AID
• SPUFI
• QMF
• REXX
• CLIST
• VSAM
• DFSMS
• DFHSM
• SMS
• RACF
• SMP/E
• IBM MQ
• DB2
• IMS
• OMEGAMON
• RMF
• SMF
• NetView
• IBM Health Checker
• CA7
• Tivoli Workload Scheduler (TWS)
• IDCAMS
• DFSORT
• IEBGENER
• IEFBR14

Nice-to-Have Skills

• CICS Web Services
• CICS Explorer
• IBM Z Performance Tuning
• Capacity Planning
• SSL/TLS Configuration
• ServiceNow
• Change Management
• Automation using REXX and CLIST
• Production Operations Support
• Disaster Recovery Testing