Overview
Skills
Job Details
We are seeking an experienced MQ Senior Lead to design, manage, and optimize enterprise messaging solutions across large-scale, mission-critical systems. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in IBM MQ, modern messaging frameworks, and distributed integration architectures.
This role requires strong hands-on technical knowledge along with the ability to lead MQ engineering teams, collaborate with architects, and ensure robust, secure, and high-performing messaging environments across hybrid cloud and on-prem infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities
MQ Architecture & Engineering
Lead the design, deployment, configuration, and optimization of IBM MQ and other messaging platforms.
Architect end-to-end messaging solutions for high availability, scalability, performance, and security.
Define standards, patterns, and governance for enterprise messaging and integration.
Troubleshoot and resolve complex MQ issues across distributed environments.
Messaging Infrastructure Management
Manage MQ clusters, queue managers, channels, listeners, topics, pub/sub, and distributed queues.
Configure MQ security including SSL/TLS, certificates, authentication, and authorization.
Implement monitoring, logging, and proactive alerting for all MQ components.
Oversee capacity planning, performance tuning, and resource optimization.
Integration & Distributed Systems
Work with application and integration teams to ensure reliable and scalable messaging patterns.
Support application teams with MQ API usage, message formats, and integration best practices.
Lead integration efforts across legacy systems, microservices, cloud platforms, and APIs.
Evaluate and implement modern messaging technologies such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, or cloud-native messaging tools.
Cloud & Automation
Design and implement MQ solutions on cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform) including containerized MQ.
Automate MQ deployments using Terraform, Ansible, Jenkins, Helm, or CI/CD pipelines.
Enable MQ-as-a-Service and self-service provisioning models for application teams.
Reliability, Security & Compliance
Ensure compliance with enterprise security policies, encryption standards, and access control.
Implement DR, HA strategies, replication, and failover for messaging systems.
Conduct audits, hardening, and vulnerability remediation for MQ environments.
Support operational excellence through runbooks, SOPs, and incident response processes.
Leadership & Collaboration
Lead MQ engineering teams, assign tasks, review deliverables, and ensure project success.
Provide technical direction, mentorship, and training to junior engineers.
Collaborate with architects, DevOps, cloud, security, and application teams.
Participate in architecture review boards and influence messaging roadmap.
Required Skills & Experience
8 14+ years of experience in enterprise messaging and middleware engineering.
Deep hands-on expertise with IBM MQ in distributed and/or mainframe environments.
Strong knowledge of:
MQ configuration, channels, cluster management
Message routing, pub/sub, MQSC scripting
MQ installation, upgrades, patching
MQ security (SSL/TLS, certs, CHLAUTH)
Experience with monitoring tools such as Dynatrace, AppDynamics, Datadog, BMC, or MQ Explorer.
Strong understanding of distributed systems, networking, firewalls, load balancers, TLS, and security.
Hands-on experience with cloud MQ services or containerized MQ deployments.
Experience with automation and CI/CD processes.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with other messaging technologies (Kafka, ActiveMQ, Solace, RabbitMQ).
Cloud certification (AWS/Azure/Google Cloud Platform) preferred.
Experience in high-availability, regulated, or large-scale enterprise environments.
Experience developing MQ-based microservices with Java, Python, or Go.