Lead IBM MQ Engineer

Location: Dallas, TX
Salary: $140,000.00 USD Annually - $187,000.00 USD Annually
Description:
Hybrid: Chicago, IL or Dallas, TX

About the Job:

We are looking for an experienced and motivated IBM MQ Administrator to join our dynamic Infrastructure team. You will be responsible for the end-to-end administration, maintenance, and support of our critical IBM MQ messaging infrastructure. This role involves ensuring the reliability, availability, performance, and security of the MQ environment, supporting business applications, and actively participating in strategic initiatives such as cloud migration, containerization, and system modernization.

Responsibilities:

• Install, configure, and maintain IBM MQ software (Queue Managers, Clients) on RHEL.
• Perform version upgrades, apply fix packs, and manage patching cycles according to best practices and security requirements.
• Configure MQ objects, including Queue Managers, Queues (Local, Remote, Alias, Model), Channels, Listeners, Clusters, Topics, and Subscriptions.
• Monitor MQ system performance metrics, message throughput, and latency.
• Identify performance bottlenecks and implement tuning adjustments at the Queue Manager, channel, and queue levels.
• Analyze MQ logs and trace data to optimize configurations.
• Provide expert-level troubleshooting for MQ-related issues, including connectivity problems, message delivery failures, security errors, and performance degradation.
• Act as a primary point of contact for application teams regarding MQ connectivity and messaging issues.
• Respond to incidents, diagnose root causes, and implement corrective actions, participating in on-call rotation if applicable.
• Monitor resource utilization (CPU, memory, disk space, message depths) and forecast future capacity needs.
• Design and implement scalable MQ solutions, including clustering and distributed queuing, to meet growing business demands.
• Develop, implement, test, and maintain disaster recovery (DR) procedures for the MQ environment.
• Configure and manage high availability (HA) solutions, potentially including multi-instance Queue Managers or clustering.
• Participate in regular DR testing exercises.
• Implement and manage MQ security configurations, including TLS/SSL for channels, Channel Authentication Rules (CHLAUTH), and Object Authority Manager (OAM).
• Work with security teams to ensure compliance with security policies and standards.
• Manage certificates and keystores for secure communication.
• Interface with IBM support (raising PMRs/Cases) for problem resolution, technical guidance, and product information.
• Stay informed about IBM MQ product roadmaps, new features, and end-of-support timelines.
• Participate in the planning, design, and execution of migrating IBM MQ workloads to AWS.
• Contribute to initiatives involving the deployment and management of IBM MQ in containerized environments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift), utilizing MQ container images and operators.
• Actively participate in infrastructure modernization projects related to messaging.
• Develop and maintain scripts (e.g., Shell, Python, Perl) or utilize automation tools (e.g., Ansible) to streamline routine MQ administration tasks, deployments, and configuration management.
• Create and maintain comprehensive documentation for MQ architecture, configurations, standards, and operational procedures.
• Collaborate effectively with application developers, system administrators, network engineers, database administrators, and project managers.

Qualifications:

• Strong understanding of core IBM MQ concepts (Queue Managers, Queues, Channels, Clustering, Publish/Subscribe, Security).
• Proficiency in administering IBM MQ on [Specify primary OS, e.g., Linux, Windows].
• Proven troubleshooting skills in diagnosing and resolving complex MQ issues.
• Experience with scripting languages (e.g., Bash, Python, Perl) for automation.
• Understanding of networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, load balancers) as they relate to MQ.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a collaborative team.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with IBM MQ on RHEL and containers in cloud.
• Experience with advanced MQ features like MQ Appliances, Advanced Message Security (AMS), Managed File Transfer (MFT).
• Experience migrating or managing IBM MQ in AWS.
• Hands-on experience with containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift) and managing MQ in containers.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools like Ansible or Terraform.
• Experience with enterprise monitoring tools (e.g., Instana, Dynatrace, Splunk, Nagios, Prometheus).
• Familiarity with other messaging technologies like Kafka.
• Experience working in Agile/DevOps environments.

Technical Skills:

• IBM MQ, Ansible, Terraform, Bash, Docker Kubernetes, Rancher, GitHub, Artifactory, Harness, Jenkins, AWS, Azure, CI/CD, IaC, Automated Cloud Provisioning

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, OR equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience administering IBM MQ in a complex enterprise environment.

Certificates or Licenses:
AWS Solutions Architect, CKAD or CKA certifications preferred.
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