Senior Software Engineer – Mainframe COBOL, z/OS, CICS, JCL

M&T Bank•Buffalo, NY

3d•$97,100 - $161,800•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Software Engineer is an individual-contributor technical lead responsible for design, development, modernization, and production support of business-critical IBM z/OS applications. The role combines deep COBOL batch and online expertise with Git-based engineering, test automation, and CI/CD. It owns technical direction, design quality, code review, modernization, delivery quality, operational readiness, and production stability for assigned applications or domains, without direct people management. The position leads technical design and engineering delivery, establishes standards for secure, maintainable, performant, and resilient code, and defines testing and deployment practices. It guides architecture and integration across mainframe and connected platforms, including incremental modernization through API enablement and secure integration with distributed and cloud environments while preserving transactional integrity. It also supports production readiness, incident analysis, risk remediation, and compliance with security, regulatory, audit, and change-management requirements. This role is based in Buffalo, New York, and follows a four-days-in-office, one-day-work-from-home model.

Requirements

Associate’s degree and at least 5 years of systems analysis and/or application development experience; or a bachelor’s degree and at least 3 years of such experience; or, in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 7 years of education and/or relevant work experience, including at least 3 years of systems analysis and/or application development experience.
Strong hands-on IBM z/OS application engineering experience using COBOL, JCL, CICS, VSAM, and batch and online transaction processing.
Experience diagnosing abends, data, transaction, and performance issues using z/OS debugging, file-analysis, and JES/SDSF tools.
Experience with Git-based source control, peer review, and CI/CD for enterprise applications.
Working knowledge of mainframe security, access control, auditability, change management, and resiliency.
Experience integrating mainframe applications through MQ, APIs, files, or events.
Expert analytical and software engineering skills, with a strong understanding of SDLC, testing, deployment, resiliency, security, and change management.
Experience leading technical initiatives or engineering workstreams as an individual-contributor technical lead.
Experience reviewing solution designs, technical requirements, and code changes.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and at least 5 years of systems analysis and/or application development experience.
Experience with z/OS Connect, ZDIH, API design, and integration with distributed or cloud platforms for modernization and platform resiliency.
Experience with mainframe DevOps and test automation tools such as IBM DBB/zBuilder, Test Accelerator for Z, SonarQube, and Ansible, and modern IDE workflows such as IDz, VS Code, Zowe, and USS.
Experience using approved AI-assisted tools responsibly.
Experience with Easytrieve+, CA7/Control-M, File-AID, Abend-AID, Xpediter, InterTest, or equivalent tools.
Experience improving production stability, defect reduction, and engineering productivity.
Experience influencing technical decisions and presenting to technology and business stakeholders in Agile delivery environments.

Responsibilities

Lead technical design, development, enhancement, and support of mainframe applications, owning technical decisions and delivery quality for assigned domains under SDLC governance.
Partner with business and technology stakeholders to align delivery with priorities, requirements, risk controls, and enterprise standards.
Lead design, troubleshooting, and performance tuning across batch and online processing, delivering secure, efficient, maintainable, and resilient mainframe code.
Establish coding standards and quality expectations for maintainability, performance, security, and resiliency.
Review and approve solution designs, code changes, peer reviews, and deployment readiness.
Define testing strategies for mainframe changes, including batch validation, automated regression and reconciliation testing, performance checks, and implementation verification.
Build and maintain Git-based CI/CD workflows with dependency-aware builds, static analysis and security quality gates, controlled promotion, and rollback readiness.
Ensure requirements, solution designs, and implementation plans are complete, feasible, scalable, secure, and aligned with standards.
Guide architecture, integration patterns, and modernization across mainframe and connected platforms, translating mainframe constraints into business, delivery, risk, and operational impacts.
Lead incremental modernization through API enablement, modularization, and secure integration with distributed and cloud platforms while preserving transactional integrity.
Improve technical health by strengthening resiliency, reducing defects and technical debt, and guiding remediation plans.
Ensure production readiness for batch schedules, online transactions, restart and recovery, monitoring, and support documentation.
Lead incident root-cause analysis and post-incident reviews.
Apply AI-assisted engineering and automation responsibly where appropriate.
Communicate architecture, decisions, progress, and risks to technical and business stakeholders; influence technical decisions across teams and present in architecture reviews and knowledge-sharing forums.
Maintain documentation and partner with business, architecture, infrastructure, security, operations, risk, and audit teams.
Ensure changes comply with risk, regulatory, policy, change-management, security, data-protection, and access-control standards; maintain auditable evidence, escalate risks, and address audit and regulatory items on time.
Support a culture of belonging, reflect the M&T Bank brand, maintain internal controls, and complete other assigned duties.