Mainframe Technical Lead

Accrescent Group; San Antonio (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Accrescent Group seeks an experienced Mainframe Technical Lead to lead a skilled team responsible for enterprise z/OS infrastructure, DB2 environments, and supporting subsystems. You will drive incident resolution, capacity planning, and security, while ensuring high availability across the platform.

The role blends hands-on technical leadership with customer engagement, governance, and team development in a 24x7 mission-critical setting. Strong mentoring and communication skills are essential.

Qualifications

• Minimum 10+ years of Mainframe infrastructure experience with leadership ability.
• Hands-on expertise with z/OS, CICS, DB2 for z/OS, and related subsystems.
• Proven ability to manage 24x7 production environments and incidents.
• Strong communication with customers and stakeholders across teams.
• Experience mentoring and developing engineering staff.
• Preferred IBM z/OS and DB2 certifications; ITIL is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor Mainframe teams across onsite, offshore, and nearshore groups.
• Provide L3 support for complex z/OS, CICS, DB2, JES, RACF and related issues.
• Oversee installation, configuration, migration, and upgrades of z/OS and ISV products.
• Drive incident, problem, change, capacity, availability, and performance activities.
• Perform RCA and implement preventive actions to meet SLAs.
• Lead IPLs, deployments, software refreshes, hardware upgrades, and DR testing.
• Define procedures, automation strategies, backup/recovery plans, and governance.
• Oversee DB2 administration, utilities, RUNSTATS, REORG, and security.
• Collaborate with application teams on DB2 performance optimization.
• Advance automation using REXX, JCL, z/OSMF, Ansible, and monitoring tools.
• Identify skill gaps and develop training plans for continuous improvement.

Skills

z/OS

MVS

JES2/JES3

Parallel Sysplex

RACF

CICS administration

DB2 for z/OS

RMF/SMF

NetView

Ansible

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

z/OSMF

SMP/E

RSU maintenance

ISV product administration

Mainframe monitoring tools

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Mainframe Technical Leadone of a client to lead and manage a team supporting enterprise z/OS infrastructure and Mainframe DB2 environments. The role is responsible for platform availability, performance, security, modernization, incident resolution, and operational excellence across z/OS, CICS, DB2, Storage, RACF, and supporting subsystem technologies. It combines hands‑on technical leadership, customer engagement, team development, and governance for 24x7 mission‑critical environments.

Job Description:

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor Mainframe Systems Programmers and DB2 Administrators across onsite, offshore, and nearshore teams.
• Provide L3 support for complex z/OS, CICS, DB2, JES, RACF, USS, storage, and subsystem‑related issues.
• Manage installation, configuration, migration, customization, maintenance, and upgrades of z/OS and ISV products.
• Drive incident, problem, change, capacity, availability, and performance management activities.
• Perform RCA, implement preventive actions, and ensure compliance with SLA and operational commitments.
• Lead IPL activities, maintenance deployments (RSU/SMP‑E), software refreshes, hardware upgrades, and disaster recovery testing.
• Define operational procedures, automation strategies, backup/recovery plans, and governance standards.
• Oversee Mainframe DB2 administration including subsystem management, utilities, backup/recovery, performance tuning, security, capacity planning, migrations, and database availability.
• Partner with application teams on DB2 performance optimization, SQL tuning, and database best practices.
• Drive automation initiatives using REXX, JCL, z/OSMF, Ansible, and monitoring tools to improve operational efficiency.
• Identify skill gaps, develop training plans, and ensure continuous capability improvement within the team.

Required Technical Skills:

• Expert knowledge of z/OS, MVS, JES2/JES3, Parallel Sysplex, GDPS, WLM, Catalog Management, PARMLIB, PROCLIB, USS, HMC, LPAR, IPL, Standalone Dumps, SMP/E, and RSU maintenance.
• Strong experience with RACF, JCL, REXX, CLIST, Assembler Exits, Control-M, Connect:Direct (NDM), z/OS Connect, and ISV product administration.
• Strong knowledge of CICS administration, including CEMT, CEDA, transaction processing, subsystem connectivity, high availability, and performance management.
• Deep understanding of DB2 for z/OS, including subsystem administration, utilities, RUNSTATS, REORG, backup/recovery, disaster recovery, SQL tuning, locking, buffer pools, security, and capacity management.
• Experience with RMF, SMF, performance analysis, capacity planning, workload optimization, and availability management.
• Experience supporting and maintaining enterprise monitoring and automation platforms such as NetView, System Automation (SA z/OS), BMC MainView, OMEGAMON, and Ansible.

Qualifications & Soft Skills:

• 10+ years of Mainframe infrastructure experience with proven technical leadership experience.
• Strong customer‑facing communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience supporting large‑scale 24x7 production environments.
• Strong documentation, governance, audit, and operational process management skills.
• Ability to lead critical incidents, manage escalations, and handle high‑pressure situations.
• Strong mentoring, coaching, and team development capabilities.

Preferred:

• IBM z/OS and DB2 certifications.
• ITIL certification.
• Experience with Mainframe Automation, AIOps, Observability, Performance & Capacity Management, and Mainframe modernization initiatives.