Principal Software Engineer – IBM z/OS Connectivity

Openkrill; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Redwood Software is seeking a Software Engineer – Principal to extend Redwood RunMyJobs onto IBM z/OS, delivering a Java agent that integrates with the Redwood platform. You will design and implement connectivity to mainframe environments, cryptography, and secure per-user authorization.

The role spans from software engineering to principal-level leadership across architecture, testing, and deployment, with opportunities to influence product direction in a fast-paced, agile environment.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong Java 8+ skills.
• Hands-on z/OS systems integration experience, including JES2/JES3, TSO, RACF/ACF2/Top Secret, SMF, and USS.
• Strong working proficiency in C.
• Low-level network protocol experience, including socket programming, custom binary framing, character-encoding conversion, and TLS.
• Experience with modern DevOps practices and technologies, including Git, CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Fluency with AI tools in a production engineering environment.
• Strong code judgment and the ability to recognize when AI-generated recommendations are unsuitable for specialized mainframe APIs.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, and maintain native software for IBM z/OS connectivity.
• Build integrations with mainframe technologies (JES2/JES3, TSO, SMF).
• Integrate security and per-user authorization with identity management capabilities.
• Develop systems-level capabilities involving custom wire protocols, cryptography, and z/OS platform integration.
• Troubleshoot complex system-level issues across mainframe, Unix, and Java environments.
• Improve reliability, performance, security, and scalability of mainframe solutions.
• Collaborate with product managers, architects, and engineers to translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Participate in architecture discussions, design reviews, code reviews, testing, and release planning.
• Leverage agentic AI to accelerate codec, testing, and documentation work.
• Document protocols and platform prerequisites for field teams.
• Validate architectural assumptions on live LPARs and contribute to decisions.

Skills

Java 8+

z/OS connectivity

C

Networking protocols

Multithreading

AI tools familiarity

Tools

Git

CI/CD

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

OUR MISSION

At Redwood, we empower our customers with lights-out automation for their mission-critical business processes.

ABOUT US

Redwood Software is the leading orchestration platform for the autonomous enterprise, driving business transformation at the lowest total cost of ownership. Redwood empowers organizations to intelligently automate and orchestrate mission-critical business and IT processes across complex ERP, hybrid cloud, data and emerging agentic AI systems. Through its SaaS-first automation fabric—with AI embedded across the automation lifecycle—Redwood accelerates the path to autonomous operations. Backed by 30 years of experience and trusted by more than 50% of the Fortune 50, Redwood helps organizations unlock human potential to focus on innovation, growth and what’s next.

CORE VALUES

One Team. One RedwoodMake Your Own WeatherObsess over Customer SuccessWork the ProblemBe CuriousOwn the OutcomeRespect Each Other

YOUR IMPACT

As a Software Engineer – Principal, IBM z/OS Connectivity, you will help build a new connectivity agent that extends Redwood RunMyJobs (RMJ) natively onto IBM z/OS, enabling Redwood to support some of the largest enterprise automation environments in the market. You will work on systems-level engineering spanning custom wire protocols, cryptography, and a native platform bridge into JES, RACF/SAF, SMF, TSO, and z/OS UNIX System Services (USS), delivered as a Java agent that integrates with the Redwood platform through clean, versioned extension points. This position is open across levels from Software Engineer to Principal as we build out the team.

• Design, develop, test, and maintain native software supporting connectivity and integration with IBM z/OS mainframe environments.
• Build integrations with core mainframe technologies, including C/JNI, JES2/JES3 job submission and monitoring, TSO command execution via background TMP, and SMF-based event monitoring.
• Integrate security and per-user authorization while extending Redwood’s existing identity and credential management capabilities.
• Develop and maintain systems-level capabilities involving custom wire protocols, cryptography, and native z/OS platform integration.
• Troubleshoot complex system-level issues across mainframe, Unix, and Java environments.
• Improve the reliability, performance, security, and scalability of Redwood’s mainframe solutions.
• Partner with product managers, architects, and engineers to translate customer requirements into effective technical solutions.
• Participate in architecture discussions, design reviews, code reviews, testing, and release planning.
• Leverage agentic AI to accelerate codec, testing, and documentation work while independently verifying correctness against authoritative IBM z/OS references.
• Document protocols, security models, and platform prerequisites for field and support teams.
• Validate technical assumptions on live LPARs and contribute to architectural decisions where modern documentation may be limited.
• Contribute to team success through clear communication, shared responsibility for quality, and accountable ownership of goals and delivery commitments in a fast-paced, iterative agile environment.

YOUR EXPERIENCE

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with strong Java 8+ skills; IBM Semeru or z/OS Java experience is a plus.
• Hands-on z/OS systems integration experience, including JES2/JES3, TSO, RACF/ACF2/Top Secret, SMF, and USS.
• Strong working proficiency in C.
• Low-level network protocol experience, including socket programming, custom binary framing, character-encoding conversion, and TLS/keyring security.
• Hands-on experience implementing cryptographic primitives to specification using standard libraries such as Java JCE, including key exchange and symmetric cipher modes, rather than designing cryptographic protocols.
• Strong concurrency and multithreading skills, with experience building resilient, long-running daemon processes.
• Ability to work effectively from primary technical sources, including IBM manuals and RACF/SMF references, rather than relying solely on tutorials or unverified AI-generated output.
• Experience with modern DevOps practices and technologies, including Git, CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes.
• Fluency with AI tools in a production engineering environment.
• Strong code judgment, including the ability to identify plausible but incorrect AI-generated recommendations involving specialized mainframe APIs.
• Proficiency in prompting AI tools, combined with the judgment to recognize when a task is too specialized for AI-assisted approaches.
• Ability to maintain an architectural focus, abstracting from individual protocol and bridge details to shared platform-integration designs.
• Experience with workload automation products such as Tidal, CA-7, Control-M, Stonebranch, BMC, or RunMyJobs preferred.
• Experience with Sysplex/Parallel Sysplex clustering or z/OSMF REST APIs preferred.
• Experience with CA-Panvalet, CA-Librarian, or other JCL library tooling preferred.
• Experience with z/OS Assembler preferred, particularly as relevant to future authorized-code or SMF-exit work; this is a specialist, separately scoped area and is not a baseline requirement.
• Mainframe migration or modernization project experience preferred.

If you like growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us!

THE LEGAL BIT

Redwood is an equal opportunity employer. Redwood prohibits unlawful discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity, marital or veteran status, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member), sexual orientation, pregnancy or any other consideration made unlawful by regional or local laws. We also prohibit discrimination based on a perception that anyone has any of those characteristics or is associated with a person who has or is perceived as having any of those characteristics. All such discrimination is unlawful and will have a zero tolerance policy applied to it.

Redwood will comply with all local data protection laws, including GDPR when it comes to the handling and processing of personal data. Should you wish for us to remove your personal data from our recruitment database, please email us directly at [e-mail]