Mainframe Support

Decskill; Lisboa; On-site; EUR 40,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

Decskill is seeking a Mainframe Support professional to join our Lisbon office. You will manage z/OS operations, batch scheduling, and incident response while coordinating with application teams and stakeholders.

Expect regular involvement in production releases and continuous improvement of processing efficiency. Ideal candidates have hands-on experience with JCL, TSO/SDSF, CICS/DB2/IMS, and batch tooling like Control-M and TWS.

Qualifications

• Proficiency with z/OS and batch processing environments.
• Experience across CICS/DB2/VSAM and related tools.
• Ability to monitor and operate batch workflows and incidents.

Responsibilities

• Operate z/OS Level 2 support and monitor batch jobs.
• Define schedules, run batch jobs via TWS and Control-M.
• Respond to incidents and perform recoveries.
• Maintain run books and produce activity reports.

Skills

z/OS

JCL

ISPF

SDSF

TSO

CICS

DB2

IMS

VSAM

MQ Series

Batch processing

Tools

Control-M

TWS

SPUFI

JES2/JES3

Job description

Decskill, founded in 2014 as an IT Consulting Company, places paramount importance on its greatest asset: its people. Our main mission is to deliver value through knowledge and talent, and we achieve this by fostering a culture of excellence and investing in the development and well-being of our people. With over 600 dedicated professionals and offices in Lisbon, Porto, Madrid, and Luxembourg, Decskill operates across three core areas:

Decskill Talent: We believe that our people are key to our success.

Through Decskill Talent, we empower our team to embrace the digital transformation challenges of our clients. We collaborate with clients to drive innovation, ensuring project success and business growth.

Decskill Boost: Equipping our team with the latest tools and methodologies, we optimize Time-to-Market and deliver innovative solutions exceeding client expectations.

Decskill Connect: Our team collaborates closely with clients to implement and manage IT infrastructures that generate long-term value.

At Decskill, we believe that by nurturing and empowering our people to confront the challenges of digital transformation, we create value not only for our clients but also for our entire ecosystem, fostering a digital community dedicated to growth and progress.

We are looking for a Mainframe Support

Responsabilities:

Ensure operational and application activities (z/OS) as Level 2 (N2) Support.

• Scheduling & monitoring
• Define, schedule and run batch jobs via TWS and Control-M;
• Ensure real-time monitoring of processing;
• Respond to incidents (abends, dependency anomalies, SLA breaches).
• Daily operations
• Launch and monitor z/OS and Control-M production processing;
• Perform recoveries/restarts following incidents;
• Manage or coordinate interventions on resources (disk space, JES queues, catalogs, GDGs, datasets);
• Handle incidents related to file transfers.
• Provide technical support to application teams;
• Optimize processing chains and reduce batch run times;
• Take part in production releases and changes;
• Carry out scheduled and ad hoc interventions outside business hours.
• Documentation & reporting
• Write operating procedures and run books;
• Keep documentation up to date.
• Produce reports on the availability and performance of processing;
• Support the entity in building solutions, in coordination with the PM / ScrumOps;
• Act as technical integrator;
• Ensure compliance with DevOps best practices and standards (culture, automation, security, observability).

Requirements:

z/OS

• System monitoring
• Check the status of LPAR partitions and subsystems (JES2/JES3, TSO, CICS, DB2);
• Analyze system messages in the console (via SDSF, OPS/MVS, etc.).
• Batch processing management;
• Reporting and documentation.

Required skills:

• Proficiency in JCL (Job Control Language);
• Knowledge of tools such as ISPF, SDSF, TSO;
• Familiarity with CICS, DB2, IMS and VSAM environments.
• Change request tracking;
• Automatic component generation:
• Production of technical scripts (JCL, Shell, XML, etc.) from functional descriptions;
• Creation of operations files and associated documentation;
• Automatic adaptation of components to target environments (DEV, INT, PROD).Preparation of production releases
• Quality control and validation;
• Reporting and documentation.

TWS

• Processing monitoring;
• Restart failed jobs after validation or correction;
• Analyze logs and execution journals to detect anomalies;
• Escalate to application teams or L3 in case of complex problems;
• Document incidents in ITSM tools (ServiceNow).
• Manual operations;
• Ad hoc launch of jobs or job chains on demand;
• Temporary modification of parameters (date, variables, priorities);
• Apply overrides or remove conditions to unblock flows.

DBMS: DB2 and SPUFI

• Run SQL queries via SPUFI for verification or diagnosis;
• Analyze SQLCODEs and common DB2 incidents;
• Check the status of DB2 jobs;
• Identify whether an incident stems from an SQL problem or a locking issue;
• Execute SQL statements dynamically in TSO;
• Read queries from a sequential dataset or a PDS member;
• Follow ITSM procedures (ServiceNow).

MQ Series

• Diagnosing complex incidents on batch flows, CICS, MQ Series, DB2, CFT transfers, etc.;
• Work on MQ objects (queues, channels, listeners), analyze blockages and restart components if necessary;
• Depending on the environment (z/OS or distributed), an L2 must master: “display queue”, “display chstatus”, “start channel / stop channel”, etc.;
• Document of the incident (depth, channel, DLQ, MQRC);
• Provide a clear diagnosis to L3 or the application teams;
• Follow ITSM procedures (ServiceNow).

CFT / Connect Express (file transfer)

• Restart failed transfers after correction or validation;
• Escalate anomalies to technical or application teams;
• Document incidents in ITSM tools (ServiceNow).
• Manual operations
• Launch transfers on demand (e.g. urgent or exceptional files);
• Modify transfer parameters: priorities, schedules, recipients;
• Apply overrides to force or inhibit certain transfers.
• Reporting and traceability
• Produce activity reports: transfer volumes, success rates, errors;
• Ensure full traceability of exchanges for audits;
• Communicate with business teams in case of delay or blockage.

Decskill is committed to equality and non-discrimination with all our talents. We recruit and promote talent, based on diversity and inclusion, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, race, nationality or any other form of discrimination incompatible with the dignity of the human being.