Industry: Financial Services
Location: Toronto, ON
Work Model: Hybrid (Remote may be considered for highly qualified candidates)
Duration: 6 months + (possibility of extension)
Employment Type: Contract
Level: Senior

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior MQ for z/OS Systems Programmer / Administrator to support a large-scale enterprise mainframe environment within the financial services sector. The successful candidate will be responsible for the administration, maintenance, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement of IBM MQ infrastructure running on z/OS.
This role requires close collaboration with infrastructure, middleware, and application teams to ensure reliable messaging services, optimal performance, and high availability across critical business systems.
 
Key Responsibilities

• Install, configure, maintain, and support IBM MQ for z/OS environments.
• Administer MQ queue managers, queues, channels, listeners, topics, and related MQ objects.
• Support MQ connectivity between z/OS and distributed platforms.
• Monitor and troubleshoot MQ availability, performance, and message flow issues.
• Diagnose queue buildup, channel failures, connectivity issues, application errors, and performance bottlenecks.
• Support MQ integration with CICS, IMS, DB2, and other mainframe applications.
• Perform MQ software maintenance, upgrades, PTF/APAR implementation, and SMP/E activities.
• Support MQ security, including RACF/ACF2/Top Secret integration, certificates, and TLS connectivity.
• Assist with high availability and disaster recovery planning and support.
• Participate in Parallel Sysplex and shared queue environments where applicable.
• Support MQ clustering and workload distribution initiatives.
• Utilize monitoring and diagnostic tools such as OMEGAMON, MQ Explorer, and related mainframe monitoring solutions.
• Participate in incident, problem, change, and release management activities.
• Develop and maintain operational procedures, technical documentation, and runbooks.
• Provide support during application implementations, platform upgrades, and production troubleshooting activities.
• Participate in rotational after-hours support for critical production incidents.
• Mentor junior team members and contribute to platform standards, best practices, and technical strategy.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of mainframe systems programming, middleware administration, or infrastructure support experience.
• Extensive hands-on experience administering IBM MQ for z/OS.
• Strong knowledge of IBM MQ architecture, configuration, and operational support.
• Experience managing:
  • Queue Managers
  • Local, Remote, and Alias Queues
  • Channels and Listeners
  • Shared Queues
  • MQ Clusters
  • Dead-Letter Queues
  • Topics and Subscriptions
• Strong understanding of z/OS architecture and mainframe operations.
• Experience with SMP/E and IBM software maintenance processes.
• Proven experience troubleshooting MQ performance, connectivity, and message-flow issues.
• Solid understanding of TCP/IP and mainframe networking concepts.
• Experience with MQ security, RACF, and TLS/certificate management.
• Experience supporting highly available, mission-critical production environments.
• Strong communication, documentation, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively across technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with CICS and MQ integration.
• Experience with IMS and MQ integration.
• Knowledge of DB2 for z/OS.
• Experience with Parallel Sysplex and Coupling Facility technologies.
• Experience supporting MQ Shared Queue environments.
• Hands-on experience with OMEGAMON monitoring tools.
• Knowledge of IBM System Automation.
• Proficiency with JCL and REXX.
• Working knowledge of COBOL or Assembler for problem determination.
• Experience with ServiceNow or similar ITSM platforms.
• Previous experience in banking or large enterprise financial services environments.
• Experience supporting disaster recovery exercises and high-availability testing.

Ideal Candidate The ideal candidate is a hands-on senior MQ infrastructure specialist who thrives in complex enterprise environments. You are comfortable working independently, resolving critical production issues, and partnering with application, middleware, and infrastructure teams to ensure platform stability and performance. Experience supporting regulated environments and participating in 24x7 production support operations is highly desirable.