Senior zOS Performance Engineer
About The Position
The Operating System Support MVS (OSS MVS) group is responsible for the enterprise z/OS platform supporting mission‑critical production and test workloads. The Senior z/OS Performance Engineer serves as the primary technical authority for the efficiency, scalability, and resource optimization of the z/OS environment. This role goes beyond traditional system programming to focus on deep-dive performance tuning, capacity forecasting, and workload modeling. You will ensure the overall health of the environment by identifying bottlenecks before they impact the business, providing expert guidance on WLM policies, and partnering with application teams to optimize high-volume financial processing.
Requirements
- 10+ years of experience as a z/OS Systems Engineer, with at least 5 years dedicated to Performance Tuning and Capacity Planning.
- Deep expertise in z/OS internals, WLM policy design, and Coupling Facility performance.
- Expert-level proficiency with performance and monitoring tools, such as RMF, CMF, OMEGAMON, zLDA and IntelliMagic
- Significant experience with SMF data analysis and reporting.
- Strong working knowledge of performance tuning for major subsystems, including CICS, Db2, and MQ.
- Advanced debugging and dump analysis skills, specifically related to performance-related hangs or contention.
- Experience writing performance reporting tools and automation using REXX, SAS, or Python.
- Familiarity with mainframe automation tools (e.g., OPS/MVS) to trigger proactive performance alerts.
- Strong experience with RACF/zSecure as it relates to system exits and performance overhead.
- Ability to translate complex performance metrics into clear business-risk language for non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to influence technical direction across teams (App Dev, Storage, DBAs) without direct authority.
- Comfortable operating in highly regulated, high-availability financial environments.
Responsibilities
- Guide the performance standards for the enterprise z/OS platform, including Parallel Sysplex workload balancing and resource capping strategies.
- Drive long-term capacity planning and MIPS/MSU forecasting to align infrastructure growth with business demand and TCO goals.
- Serve as the escalation point for complex performance degradation, resource contention, and wait-time analysis.
- Define and maintain WLM (Workload Manager) service class goals to ensure mission-critical financial workloads meet strict SLAs.
- Conduct "Deep Dive" forensic analysis of SMF/RMF data to identify inefficient code, I/O bottlenecks, or suboptimal subsystem configurations.
- Plan and execute z/OS tuning initiatives and modernization efforts (e.g., zIIP offloading, Compression Acceleration) to maximize hardware ROI.
- Collaborate on z/OS upgrades specifically to evaluate the performance impact of new OS features and hardware generations.
- Monitor system activity using industry-standard tools to provide expert recommendations to DB2, CICS, and MQ teams for improving throughput.
- Partner with Application Development to analyze SQL performance and program efficiency, reducing CPU consumption in high-traffic environments.
- Own the performance aspects of Disaster Recovery, ensuring that recovered environments can sustain production workloads under stressed conditions.
- Provide mentorship to system programmers on performance monitoring techniques and data interpretation.
- Represent the z/OS platform in architecture reviews, acting as a gatekeeper for performance standards in new enterprise technology initiatives.
- Interface with vendors and business stakeholders to communicate capacity risks and optimization opportunities.
Benefits
- BBH and its affiliates' compensation program includes base salary, discretionary bonuses, and profit-sharing.
- BBH's total rewards package recognizes your contributions with more than just a paycheck—providing you with benefits that enhance your experience at BBH from long-term savings, healthcare, and income protection to professional development opportunities and time off, our programs support your overall well-being.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
Education Level
No Education Listed
Number of Employees
501-1,000 employees
