Overseas Contractor

LTM; Sheffield; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology solutions provider in Sheffield is looking for an expert in technical leadership responsible for overseeing the IBM Z and IBM I platforms. The role involves defining long-term strategies, ensuring operational excellence, and leading initiatives like disaster recovery and Open Telemetry implementation. An ideal candidate will possess deep knowledge of Dynatrace, Grafana, Jenkins, and Splunk, alongside expertise in QuantumSafe Cryptography and DevOps practices. This position offers an excellent opportunity for impact and innovation in a dynamic environment.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in IBM Z and IBM I platforms.
• Ability to design and implement Open Telemetry solutions.
• Strong understanding of QuantumSafe Cryptography.

Responsibilities

• Define the long-term roadmap for IBM Z and IBM I.
• Lead the continuous improvement of operational resiliency.
• Design and test robust disaster recovery strategies.

Skills

Dynatrace

Grafana

Jenkins

Splunk

Job description

Keyskills: Dynatrace, Grafana, Jenkins, Splunk

Location: UK Sheffield

Mode: fte/subcon

Key Responsibilities

• 1Strategic Technical Leadership Governance
• Platform Vision Define the longterm roadmap for IBM Z and IBM I ensuring infrastructure remains resilient and aligned with business growth
• Lifecycle Management Oversee the endtoend lifecycle of core systems ensuring internal engineering principles are applied from initial build to daytoday operations
• Technical Authority Serve as the primary advisor to the CTOi bridging the gap between platform complexities and executive business goals
• Operational Excellence Lead the continuous improvement of operational resiliency Architect and govern highavailability frameworks including Parallel Sysplex GDPS Geographically Dispersed Parallel Sysplex for IBM Z and PowerHA clusters DB2 Mirror for IBM I
• Proactive Risk Mitigation Proactively identify and mitigate technical risks through deepdive system health checks vulnerability assessments and predictive performance modelling
• Disaster Recovery DR Strategy Design and test robust DR strategies eg Cyber Vault Metro Mirror to ensure nearzero RTORPO for missioncritical workloads
• Incident PostMortems Lead the rootcause analysis RCA for major system incidents implementing architectural changes to prevent recurrence
• 3Strategic Adoption of Open Telemetry OTel
• Standardization Design and implement Open Telemetry collectors and instrumentation patterns specifically tailored for IBM Z and IBM I workloads
• FullStack Integration Enable seamless distributed tracing across hybrid paths from mobile frontends through middleware zCEE CICS MQ to DB2 and back
• Metric Modernization Convert legacy SMF records and system logs into OTelcompliant metrics and traces to provide a unified single pane of glass view
• Performance Engineering Collaborate with DevOps teams to build realtime dashboards that correlate IBM Z and IBM I telemetry with distributed cloud services
• 4Everything as Code Strategy IaC CaC PaC
• Infrastructure as Code IaC Drive the transition to softwaredefined infrastructure using Terraform or zOS Cloud Broker for containerized workload
• Configuration as Code CaC Manage OS parameters and middleware zCEE CICS DB2 MQ via versioncontrolledYAMLJSON files orchestrated through zOSMF and Ansible
• Policy as Code PaC Programmatically enforce security audit and compliance policies eg RACF to ensure automated governance across the hybrid stack
• 5Security QuantumSafe FutureProofing
• QuantumSafe Transition Lead the migration to QuantumSafe Cryptography QSC protecting data against future quantum threats using latticebased algorithms
• CryptoAgility Architect systems that allow for rapid updates to cryptographic providers without disrupting core business logic
• Pervasive Encryption Oversee implementation of IBM Z Pervasive Encryption to ensure 100 data protection
• GenAI Agentic AI Lead the integration of Generative AI eg Watsonx Code Assistant for code refactoring and deploy Agentic AI autonomous agents for intelligent system operations
• Hybrid Cloud Strategy Optimize workload placement using Red Hat OpenShift across onpremises and public cloud environments

Technical Expertise Tooling Mastery

1Core Platforms Engineering Depth

• IBM Z Deeplevel expertise in zOS parallel sysplex GDPS WLM CF structures USS and RMFSMF performance analysis
• IBM I Comprehensive mastery of IBM I objects Integrated File System IFS and PowerHA clusters

2OpenTelemetry Observability Stack

• OTel Specification Deep understanding of the Open Telemetry Protocol OTLP including the design and configuration of OTel Collectors receivers processors and exporters
• Distributed Tracing Experience with context propagation W3C Trace Context to link mainframe transactions to distributed microservices
• Backend Integration Ability to export telemetry to industrystandard backends such as IBM Instana Splunk Dynatrace Elastic or GrafanaPrometheus
• Middleware Mastery Handson experience with zCEE CICS DB2 and MQ You should understand how to enable trace propagation across these subsystems using OTelcompatible headers

3QuantumSafe Encryption Modern Security

• PQC PostQuantum Cryptography Knowledge of implementing QuantumSafe APIs and algorithms like CrystalsKyber available on the IBM z16 and modern Power systems
• Pervasive Encryption Expertlevel ability to implement Dataset and File System encryption with zero impact on application logic
• Zero Trust Architecture Architecting Least Privilege access systems and ensuring endtoend encryption of data using ATTLS or TLS 13

4Modern Tooling Open Platform Integration

• DevOps Orchestration Mastery of GitHub ActionsEnterprise Jenkins and Ansible for crossplatform CICD