Senior Infrastructure Architect - Mainframe & Database Platforms

Cognizant; Hartford (CT); Hybrid; USD 88,000 - 130,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Vision Insurance

Life Insurance

Paid holidays

PTO

401(k)

Disability Insurance

Parental Leave

Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking a Senior Infrastructure Architect to provide technical leadership across enterprise mainframe and database platforms (IMS, IDMS, Datacom, DB2, z/OS). You will design secure, scalable solutions and guide architecture standards while ensuring performance and compliance.

The role is hybrid, based in Hartford, CT, requiring 3 days in Cognizant offices. Strong collaboration with development and operations teams is essential, along with incident resolution and capacity planning.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in a relevant field.
• Extensive experience administering enterprise mainframe environments.
• Strong hands-on expertise with IMS, IDMS, Datacom, DB2 and z/OS.
• Experience designing highly available and scalable infra architectures.
• Proven performance tuning, capacity planning, monitoring, incident management.

Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end infrastructure solutions across mainframe platforms.
• Lead integration of mainframe databases and z/OS subsystems for reliability.
• Provide advanced IMS administration guidance and optimization.
• Manage IDMS environments and resource optimization.
• Administer Datacom with schema management and backups.
• Oversee z/OS config, workload management, security, and capacity planning.
• Perform DB2 subsystem config, storage mgmt, and tuning.
• Collaborate with teams to translate needs into scalable solutions.
• Implement monitoring, alerts, and capacity-based decisions.
• Coordinate changes with controlled deployment processes.
• Lead root-cause analysis and preventative measures for stability.
• Develop architecture docs, runbooks, and standards.
• Offer security hardening and data-protection recommendations.

Skills

IMS

IDMS

Datacom

DB2

z/OS

Mainframe administration

Performance tuning

Incident management

Security & compliance

Architecture leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / IT / Engineering

Tools

IMS

IDMS

Datacom

DB2

z/OS

Job description

Senior Infrastructure Architect - Mainframe & Database Platforms

About the role

As a Senior Infrastructure Architect, you will provide technical leadership and architecture expertise across enterprise mainframe and database platforms, including IMS, IDMS, Datacom, DB2, and z/OS. You will design and support secure, resilient, and scalable infrastructure solutions that enable mission-critical business services while ensuring operational excellence, performance optimization, and compliance with enterprise technology standards.

In this role, you will

• Design and implement end-to-end infrastructure solutions across IMS, IDMS, Datacom, DB2, and z/OS environments that align with enterprise architecture standards and business objectives.
• Lead the integration of mainframe databases and z/OS subsystems to ensure high availability, reliability, scalability, and performance.
• Provide advanced technical guidance for IMS administration, including configuration, maintenance, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and incident resolution.
• Manage IDMS environments, optimizing resource utilization, database regions, and data access strategies to support business-critical workloads.
• Administer Datacom environments, including schema management, backup and recovery processes, and performance optimization initiatives.
• Oversee z/OS administration activities, including system configuration, workload management, security controls, and capacity planning.
• Perform DB2 system administration tasks, including subsystem configuration, storage management, performance tuning, and optimization of database operations.
• Partner with development, engineering, and operations teams to translate business needs into scalable infrastructure solutions.
• Implement monitoring, alerting, and reporting capabilities to proactively identify issues and support capacity management decisions.
• Coordinate infrastructure changes and releases through controlled deployment processes and impact assessments.
• Lead the resolution of complex incidents, conduct root cause analysis, and implement preventative measures to improve platform stability.
• Develop and maintain architecture documentation, operational procedures, configuration standards, and technical runbooks.
• Provide recommendations for security hardening, compliance adherence, and data protection strategies across supported platforms.

We believe hybrid work is the way forward as we strive to provide flexibility wherever possible. Based on this role’s business requirements, this is a hybrid position requiring 3 days a week in a client or Cognizant office Hartford, CT city, state. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance though our various wellbeing programs.

The working arrangements for this role are accurate as of the date of posting. This may change based on the project you’re engaged in, as well as business and client requirements. Rest assured; we will always be clear about role expectations.

What you need to have to be considered

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Extensive experience administering and supporting enterprise mainframe environments.
• Strong hands-on expertise with IMS, IDMS, Datacom, DB2, and z/OS platforms.
• Experience designing highly available and scalable infrastructure architectures.
• Proven experience with performance tuning, capacity planning, monitoring, and incident management.
• Strong understanding of mainframe database administration, backup and recovery processes, and system optimization techniques.
• Experience working within enterprise change management and release management frameworks.
• Knowledge of infrastructure security, compliance requirements, and risk management principles.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.

These will help you stand out

• Experience supporting large-scale enterprise or global mainframe environments.
• Knowledge of automation and operational efficiency tools within z/OS ecosystems.
• Experience implementing observability, monitoring, and performance management solutions.
• Familiarity with regulatory compliance frameworks and security best practices.
• Experience mentoring technical teams and providing architecture leadership across multiple initiatives.

Salary and Other Compensation

Applications will be accepted until November 5, 2026.

The annual salary for this position is between $88,000 - $130,000 depending on experience and other qualifications of the successful candidate.

This position is also eligible for Cognizant’s discretionary annual incentive program, based on performance and subject to the terms of Cognizant’s applicable plans.

Benefits:

Cognizant offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:

• Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance
• Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off
• 401(k) plan and contributions
• Long-term/Short-term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Disclaimer: The salary, other compensation, and benefits information is accurate as of the date of this posting. Cognizant reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.