Senior Infrastructure Specialist zMQ

Lloyds Banking Group; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension up to 15%

Share schemes

30 days holiday

Wellbeing initiatives

Parental leave policies

Office attendance flexibility

Job summary

Lloyds Banking Group is seeking a specialist to join the z/OS MQ team. You will provide technical leadership and expert support for critical MQ environments, shaping the roadmap and driving modernization across the mainframe platform.

In this hybrid role, you will collaborate with stakeholders to deliver against a technology roadmap, embracing automation, DevOps, and emerging capabilities while ensuring secure, resilient services for customers.

Qualifications

• Extensive knowledge of MQ infrastructure on z/OS.
• Strong experience of MQ system performance tuning, diagnosis and problem resolution.
• Experience supporting and troubleshooting business-critical online systems.
• Experience working with TLS.
• An interest in driving innovation, automation and the evolution of mainframe technologies.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and support for MQ environments operating to demanding service levels.
• Help shape the strategic roadmap for z/OS MQ and influence future platform direction.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to deliver against the technology roadmap and ensure customer outcomes.
• Support adoption of modern engineering practices, including automation and DevOps.
• Work with middleware, infrastructure and engineering teams to explore and implement solutions.
• Promote standardisation and operational excellence while ensuring controls are followed.

Skills

Technical leadership

Incident resolution

Automation

DevOps practices

AI interest

Roadmap planning

Tools

MQ on z/OS

TLS

Job description

LOCATION(S): Edinburgh, Manchester or Leeds

HOURS: Full-time - 35 hours per week

WORKING PATTERN: Our work style is hybrid, which involves spending at least two days per week, or 40% of our time, at our Edinburgh, Manchester, or Leeds office.

About this opportunity

This is an exciting time to join our z/OS MQ team. We're at a pivotal point in our transformation, evolving from a traditional infrastructure function into a forward-thinking engineering team focused on automation, simplification, service excellence and innovation. We're looking for passionate, creative individuals with deep MQ expertise who want to help shape the future roadmap for messaging on the mainframe.

In this role, you'll provide highly specialised technical support across critical mainframe environments while contributing to the strategic direction of our MQ platform. You'll help maintain, modernise and evolve our services in line with Group standards, as well as helping drive the adoption of modern engineering practices, DevOps principles and emerging technologies, including AI-enabled capabilities.

You'll help to connect and integrate MQ with a range of modern technologies while ensuring our customers continue to receive resilient, secure and reliable services.

Additionally, you'll provide technical expertise for incident and problem resolution within complex environments, including participation in out-of-hours support and delivery activities when required.

What you'll do

Provide technical leadership and support for complex MQ environments operating to demanding service levels.

Help shape the strategic roadmap for z/OS MQ, influencing the future direction of our platform and engineering capabilities.

Work closely with key stakeholders and customers to drive and deliver against the technology roadmap, ensuring service and customer outcomes remain at the heart of everything we do.

Support the adoption of modern engineering practices, including automation, DevOps and continuous improvement initiatives.

Collaborate across middleware, infrastructure and engineering teams to explore and implement innovative solutions, integrating mainframe technologies with emerging platforms and capabilities.

Promote standardisation, simplification and operational excellence while ensuring processes and controls are adhered to.

Why Lloyds Banking Group

We're on an exciting journey to transform our Group and the way we're shaping finance for good. We're focusing on the future, investing in our technologies, workplaces, and colleagues to make our Group a great place for everyone. Including you!

What you'll need

Extensive knowledge of MQ infrastructure on z/OS.

Strong experience of MQ system performance tuning, diagnosis and problem resolution.

Experience supporting and troubleshooting business-critical online systems.

Experience working with Transport Layer Security (TLS).

An interest in driving innovation, automation and the evolution of mainframe technologies.

It would be great if you also had

Experience or a keen interest in DevOps practices, automation and modern engineering approaches.

An interest in AI and emerging technologies, and how they can be applied to improve engineering effectiveness and customer outcomes.

Strong diagnostic skills and the ability to analyse technical information from multiple sources, providing effective solutions in complex environments.

About working for us

Our ambition is to be the leading UK business for diversity, equity and inclusion supporting our customers, colleagues and communities and we're committed to creating an environment in which everyone can thrive, learn and develop.

We were one of the first major organisations to set goals on diversity in senior roles, create a menopause health package, and a dedicated Working with Cancer Initiative.

We offer reasonable workplace adjustments for colleagues with disabilities, including flexibility in office attendance, location and working patterns. And, as a Disability Confident Leader, we guarantee interviews for a fair and proportionate number of applicants who meet the minimum criteria for the role with a disability, long-term health or neurodivergent condition through the Disability Confident Scheme.

We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process to reduce or remove barriers. Just let us know what you need.

We also offer a wide-ranging benefits package, which includes:

A generous pension contribution of up to 15%

An annual performance-related bonus

Share schemes including free shares

Benefits you can adapt to your lifestyle, such as discounted shopping

30 days' holiday, with bank holidays on top

A range of wellbeing initiatives and generous parental leave policies