Mainframe Production Support Specialist

Alquemy Search & Consulting; Toronto; On-site; CAD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Alquemy Search & Consulting is seeking a Mainframe Production Support Specialist to join our technology team. The role focuses on maintaining service stability, rapid incident response, and effective recovery planning for critical payment and connectivity services.

This hands-on position is about 70% L2 and 30% L3 support, working with COBOL, CICS, DB2, MQ, SPUFI, and related tooling. You will coordinate with Incident Management, participate in post-incident reviews, and handle change/release

Qualifications

• 10+ years of IT experience with production support.
• Hands-on mainframe experience essential.
• Experience in banking/payments domain is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical production support and respond to system and service issues.
• Investigate incidents and identify immediate solutions or mitigations to restore services quickly.
• Troubleshoot issues across mainframe applications, infrastructure, scheduling, and connected systems.
• Coordinate with Incident Manager and technical teams during major incidents.
• Create and maintain knowledge articles, runbooks, and operational documentation.

Skills

10+ years IT exp

Mainframe technologies

COBOL

CICS

DB2

MQ

TWS

SPUFI

APIs

Incident/problem/change/release mgmt

Communication skills

Tools

SPUFI

TWS

SQL

MQ

Job description

We are seeking a Mainframe Production Support Specialist to join a technology team supporting critical payment and client connectivity services.

This is a hands-on production support role focused on maintaining service stability, troubleshooting incidents, coordinating technical recovery, and supporting ongoing operational improvements. The role is approximately 70% L2 support and 30% L3 support, with a strong emphasis on traditional mainframe technologies.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide technical production support and respond to system and service-related issues.
• Investigate incidents and identify immediate solutions or mitigations to restore services quickly.
• Troubleshoot issues across mainframe applications, infrastructure, scheduling, and connected systems.
• Work alongside the Incident Manager and coordinate with technical teams during major incidents.
• Communicate technical findings, service impact, recovery progress, and action plans to relevant stakeholders.
• Escalate critical issues appropriately and support incidents through to resolution.

Problem Management & Continuous Improvement

• Participate in post-incident reviews and root-cause analysis.
• Identify recurring production issues and recommend improvements.
• Create and maintain knowledge articles, runbooks, and operational documentation.
• Help improve service stability and reduce incident resolution times.

Change & Release Support

• Participate in change and release activities while following established policies and control requirements.
• Support activities such as role swaps, disaster recovery testing, patching, and system evergreening.
• Identify and communicate potential risks during change planning and implementation.

Operational Support

• Work effectively in a global, virtual team environment.
• Support changing priorities and multiple technical issues simultaneously.
• Provide support outside standard business hours when required.
• Participate in a weekend support rotation approximately once every 4 weeks.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of overall IT experience, with strong production support experience.
• Strong hands-on experience with mainframe technologies.
• Experience supporting production environments and resolving technical incidents.
• Strong knowledge of:
• COBOL
• CICS
• DB2
• MQ
• TWS
• SPUFI
• Experience with incident, problem, change, and release management processes.
• Experience with disaster recovery practices.
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills.
• Experience working with APIs and mainframe technologies.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate with technical teams across multiple regions.
• Ability to work flexible schedules, including weekend rotation and occasional support outside standard hours.
• Familiarity with AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot and/or Claude.

Nice to Have

• Experience in banking, particularly corporate banking or payments.
• Knowledge of banking payment systems.
• Experience with:
• SQL
• Java/J2EE
• Unix
• Oracle
• MQ
• WebSphere
• Experience with monitoring and observability tools such as: