Mainframe z/OS Systems Programmer
Northwestern Mutual•Milwaukee, WI
•Hybrid
About The Position
This is a mainframe role focused on IBM z/OS environments. While the role exists within the broader Software Engineering family, day‑to‑day responsibilities are exclusively centered on z/OS platform engineering and operations. Experience with distributed systems or cloud technologies is not required for success in this position.
Requirements
- Deep experience in IBM z/OS systems programming
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
- At least 4 years of relevant experience
- 5+ years of professional IT experience, primarily focused on enterprise mainframe platforms
- Experience applying DevOps concepts, Agile methodologies, and automation in mainframe environments
- Experience monitoring and tuning performance of large‑scale systems
- Working knowledge of scripting or programming concepts for automation
- Familiarity with authentication, authorization, certificates, and vulnerability management
- Extensive hands‑on experience as a z/OS Systems Programmer in production environments
- Strong knowledge of z/OS internals, JES2, RACF, SMP/E, and system libraries
- Proven expertise in SMF/RMF‑based performance tuning, capacity planning, and problem determination
- Experience with DASD, tape management, and SAN technologies, including Hyperswap
- Proficiency with REXX, CLIST, and USS shell scripting (additional languages a plus)
- Knowledge of PKI/SSL, LDAP integration, Kerberos, and mainframe security hardening
- Strong troubleshooting, documentation, and communication skills under sustained production pressure
- Communicates complex technical information clearly across both technical and non‑technical audiences.
- Designs and supports systems with a strong customer‑first mindset, particularly for mission‑critical platforms.
- Designs, implements, and maintains enterprise‑class hardware, system software, networks, and data storage platforms.
- Uses monitoring and performance tools to diagnose, optimize, and stabilize system performance.
- Demonstrates deep expertise in operating system architecture, internals, and resource management.
- Develops, maintains, and documents complex programs, scripts, and automation.
- Resolves complex technical issues and drives alignment on durable solutions in production environments.
Nice To Haves
- Experience supporting Sysplex and Coupling Facility environments
- Exposure to subsystems such as CICS, DB2, and MQ and their integration with z/OS
- Experience with z/OSMF, Ansible, or automation/orchestration tooling for mainframe lifecycle management
- Familiarity with cloud‑to‑mainframe integration or CI/CD concepts as applied to z/OS
Responsibilities
- Mentor, enable, and teach peers to be self‑sufficient within the mainframe platform
- Apply engineering standard methodologies to analyze, design, and maintain z/OS system‑level solutions
- Leverage established standards, best practices, and automation to support mission‑critical mainframe workloads
- Identify complex system‑level problems and implement reliable, supportable solutions in a highly regulated production environment
- Review, verify, and validate system‑level changes, configurations, and automation introduced into production
- Drive continuous improvement across reliability, availability, performance, security, and operational efficiency
- Develop, maintain, and execute disaster recovery and redundancy strategies
- Partners with vendors and enterprise teams on emerging best practices, patterns, and technologies
- Proactively learn emerging platforms and related technologies
- Establish and maintain best practices related to compliance, security, privacy, and legal requirements
- Anticipate deviations from standard practices and determine practical paths forward
- Track industry trends relevant to the domain and apply them where appropriate
- Break down complex problems into manageable components and help others do the same
- Perform hands‑on z/OS system administration including IPLs, system startup/shutdown, parameter tuning, and system recovery
- Plan, execute, and validate IBM and ISV software installs and upgrades using z/OSMF Software Instances and Workflows
- Manage SMP/E environments including PTFs, HOLDDATA, USERMODs, and consolidation builds
- Install, analyze, and modify system exits and USERMODs, including assembler updates when required
- Build and maintain system‑resident DASD volumes, system libraries, and reproducible system builds
- Configure and administer JES2
- Administer RACF security including users, groups, profiles, access controls, and policy enforcement
- Author, debug, and optimize JCL for batch processing
- Analyze SMF/RMF data for accounting, capacity planning, and system performance tuning
- Administer and tune DFSMS components including DFSMShsm and DFSMSrmm
- Configure and troubleshoot TCP/IP for z/OS and associated services
- Develop automation and tools using REXX, CLIST, and UNIX System Services scripting
- Use monitoring tools such as BMC MainView and/or Intellimagic Vision
- Support mainframe hardware environments including HMC operations, CPC/LPAR configuration, and IBM zSeries platforms
- Participate in on‑call rotations and ITIL‑aligned incident, change, and problem management
- Coordinate with vendors and ISVs for licensing, problem determination, and PTF coordination
- Create and maintain documentation, runbooks, SOPs, and operational procedures
- Mentor and train junior staff on z/OS engineering and operational practices
Benefits
- Compensation and benefits could be applicable
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Mid Level
Education Level
Associate degree
