Production Support Engineer

IBM Sterling Connect Direct Engineer
Job Category: IT Infrastructure / Managed File Transfer (MFT) Experience: 5+ years Role Focus: Tier 3 Production Support & Platform Engineering

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced IBM Sterling Connect:Direct Engineer to administer, support, secure, and optimize enterprise Managed File Transfer (MFT) environments. The role provides Tier 3 production support, resolves complex file-transfer and connectivity issues, manages Connect:Direct nodes and Secure Plus configurations, and leads platform upgrades, migrations, monitoring, and operational improvements. The engineer partners with application, infrastructure, network, and security teams to ensure reliable, compliant, and highly available data exchange.

Skills & Expertise Required

• IBM Sterling MFT: Connect:Direct administration, nodes, processes, Secure Plus, enterprise MFT operations
• Secure File Transfer & Security: SFTP, FTPS, HTTPS, SSL/TLS, certificate and SSH key management, encryption controls
• Infrastructure & Networking: Linux/Unix, Windows, TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, load balancers, connectivity diagnostics
• Production Operations: Tier 3 support, monitoring, incident/problem/change management, RCA, performance and capacity
• Engineering & Automation: Platform upgrades, patching, migrations, lifecycle management, scripting and operational documentation

Key Roles & Responsibilities

• Provide Tier 3 production support for IBM Sterling Connect:Direct and resolve critical file transfer incidents.
• Configure, administer, and maintain Connect:Direct nodes, processes, partner connectivity, and network settings.
• Diagnose complex transfer failures, network connectivity issues, and platform performance bottlenecks.
• Perform root cause analysis, implement corrective/preventive actions, and improve platform reliability.
• Configure and troubleshoot Connect:Direct Secure Plus and secure transfer integrations using SFTP, FTPS, and HTTPS.
• Manage SSL/TLS certificates, SSH keys, encryption configurations, and associated security controls.
• Plan and execute platform upgrades, migrations, patching, and lifecycle maintenance with change controls.
• Monitor system health, transfer activity, capacity, availability, and performance; respond to alerts.
• Partner with application teams to onboard file-transfer interfaces and resolve enterprise data exchange issues.
• Develop scripts and automation to streamline repetitive operations, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
• Participate in on-call rotations, major incident response, recovery activities, and service restoration.
• Maintain runbooks, technical documentation, knowledge articles, and audit-ready operational records.
• Ensure adherence to enterprise security, regulatory, and audit requirements for file-transfer services.

Mandatory Skills & Expertise

• 5+ years of hands-on IBM Sterling Connect:Direct administration in large enterprise MFT environments.
• Expertise in Connect:Direct Secure Plus, node/process configuration, troubleshooting, and rule-based secure transfers.
• Strong secure file-transfer and encryption knowledge: SFTP, FTPS, HTTPS, SSL/TLS certificates, and SSH keys.
• Proficiency in Linux/Unix and Windows with TCP/IP, DNS, firewall, and load-balancer troubleshooting.
• Proven Tier 3 production support, incident/problem/change management, RCA, and platform stability improvement.

Good-to-Have Skills & Expertise

• IBM Sterling File Gateway (SFG), Sterling B2B Integrator (SBI), and Sterling Secure Proxy.

• IBM Sterling Control Center and enterprise MFT monitoring/observability tools.
• Cloud platforms, OpenShift, Kubernetes, and hybrid infrastructure exposure.
• Shell, Python, PowerShell, or Ansible scripting and workflow automation.
• Splunk, Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Grafana, and related operational monitoring tools.
• High-availability architectures, disaster recovery planning, and recovery testing.