Job Title – 100% Remote Senior Mainframe CICS System Administrator (MQ)
Location: Remote
Duration: 6-12 month contract
Required Skills:
We are seeking a highly experienced Senior Mainframe CICS System Administrator to administer, support, and optimize enterprise IBM z/OS mainframe environments. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience managing CICS Transaction Server, z/OS systems programming, CICSPlex SM, JCL, RACF, VSAM, and production support in mission-critical environments. This role requires strong troubleshooting, performance tuning, system maintenance, and automation experience supporting large-scale banking, insurance, or utility organizations.
Required Skills
- 15+ years of experience administering IBM Mainframe environments.
- Strong hands-on experience with IBM CICS Transaction Server (TS 5.3/5.5/5.6).
- Extensive knowledge of z/OS, MVS, JES2, and UNIX System Services (USS).
- Experience creating and maintaining CICS Regions, CSD, and resource definitions using CEDA, CEMT, and CICS Explorer.
- Hands-on experience with CICSPlex SM administration and workload management.
- Strong knowledge of JCL, PROC libraries, GDGs, SORT utilities, IDCAMS, IEBGENER, and IEFBR14.
- Experience with TSO/ISPF, SDSF, IOF, File-AID, SPUFI, and QMF.
- Strong knowledge of VSAM (KSDS, ESDS, RRDS), SMS, DFSMS, DFHSM, zFS, and storage management.
- Experience administering RACF security, started task IDs, dataset security, and keyring management.
- Experience with SMP/E, including PTF, APAR, RSU installation, and maintenance.
- Experience supporting DB2, IMS, and IBM MQ integrated CICS environments.
- Knowledge of CA7/CA Workload Automation or Tivoli Workload Scheduler (TWS).
- Experience using monitoring tools such as OMEGAMON, RMF, SMF, NetView, and IBM Health Checker.
- Strong troubleshooting skills for CICS regions, JCL failures, storage issues, and system performance.
Key Responsibilities
- Administer and support IBM CICS Transaction Server environments across multiple production LPARs.
- Install, configure, maintain, and upgrade CICS regions and related system software.
- Manage CICS resource definitions using CEDA, CEMT, and CSD.
- Configure and maintain CICSPlex SM for workload balancing and region management.
- Perform system maintenance using SMP/E, including PTF, APAR, and RSU implementation.
- Monitor system health, availability, and performance using OMEGAMON, RMF, and SMF.
- Troubleshoot CICS transaction failures, abends, storage issues, and batch processing problems.
- Develop and maintain JCL, automation scripts (REXX/CLIST), and operational procedures.
- Administer RACF security, SSL/TLS configurations, and access controls.
- Manage VSAM datasets, storage allocation, backups, recovery, and disaster recovery procedures.
- Support CA7/TWS scheduling and optimize enterprise batch processing.
- Coordinate production implementations, IPL activities, and planned maintenance windows.
- Work closely with application developers, database administrators, network teams, and infrastructure teams to resolve production issues.
- Participate in 24x7 production support and on-call rotations.
- Prepare technical documentation, operational runbooks, and system standards.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supporting Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, or Utilities environments.
- IBM z/OS Systems Administration certification.
- IBM CICS System Administration certification.
- Experience with PCI DSS, SOC 2, NERC CIP, or other regulated environments.
- Knowledge of Disaster Recovery, High Availability, and Capacity Planning.
- Experience with CICS Web Services, TLS/SSL, and API integrations.
- Familiarity with automation using REXX, CLIST, or shell scripting.
Technical Environment
- IBM z/OS
- IBM CICS Transaction Server (TS 5.3, 5.5, 5.6)
- CICSPlex SM
- JES2
- MVS
- UNIX System Services (USS)
- JCL
- TSO/ISPF
- SDSF
- IOF
- File-AID
- SPUFI
- QMF
- REXX
- CLIST
- VSAM
- DFSMS
- DFHSM
- SMS
- RACF
- SMP/E
- IBM MQ
- DB2
- IMS
- OMEGAMON
- RMF
- SMF
- NetView
- IBM Health Checker
- CA7
- Tivoli Workload Scheduler (TWS)
- IDCAMS
- DFSORT
- IEBGENER
- IEFBR14
Nice-to-Have Skills
- CICS Web Services
- CICS Explorer
- IBM Z Performance Tuning
- Capacity Planning
- SSL/TLS Configuration
- ServiceNow
- Change Management
- Automation using REXX and CLIST
- Production Operations Support
- Disaster Recovery Testing
Thanks & Regards,
Gaurav Gaur
Team Lead Recruitment
Email: | Phone :
Never miss an opportunity! Create an alert based on the job you applied for.