Senior Systems Programmer Analyst

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina•Columbia, SC

5d•Onsite

About The Position

The CICS team is a core part of our Mainframe Services organization, responsible for delivering and supporting the transaction processing backbone of our enterprise systems. This group manages the full lifecycle of CICS (Customer Information Control System) environments, ensuring high availability, performance, and reliability for mission-critical business applications. Each team member plays a vital role, owning specific technological components that are essential to CICS operations. This clear sense of responsibility fosters collaboration and mutual respect, with strong relationships and high levels of trust across the team. Everyone is empowered to contribute, and the team thrives on open communication, shared goals, and a genuine commitment to helping one another succeed. This position requires a clearance which requires U.S. citizenship to obtain. Sponsorship: This position is not eligible for sponsorship now or in the future. Position Purpose: 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.

Requirements

Bachelor's in a job-related field
Associate's degree plus an extra 2 years job-related experience for a total of 10 years of required work experience OR 12 total years required work experience
8 Years IT experience including extensive systems programming experience.
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.

Nice To Haves

Daily support and upkeep of the Mainframe CICS Environment and supporting products and processes.
Work with IBM and vendor utilities and be able to work with various technical groups to support real-time business functions.
Knowledge of CICS/TS internals and operations.
Hands on experience with the latest z/OS Versions and Release levels and Products including CICS, CPSM, CICS Explorer, SMF, JCL, SMPE, TSO, SDSF, RACF, SVC Dumps, MQ, CA Sysview, TCP/IP, CAFC, IPCS, DB2, IMS, VSAM.
Mainframe Disaster Recovery / Data Center Rotations.
Proficient in the use of JCL and working with various vendor utility programs.
Debugging experience, knowledge of COBOL, Assembler, and CICS API programming.

Responsibilities

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.