Senior Mainframe Architect: Capacity & Performance

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Pittsburgh (Allegheny County)

On-site

USD 140,000 - 190,000

Full time

5 days ago

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Job summary

Highmark is seeking a highly motivated Mainframe Senior Architect to join the Mainframe Platform Services team. This role is accountable for the performance and capacity management of Highmark’s IBM enterprise mainframe environment, ensuring optimal system efficiency, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.

The position requires deep technical expertise across core mainframe technologies, including z/OS, Db2, IMS, CICS, MQ, and related subsystems.

Qualifications

10+ years of mainframe systems experience in large, multi-LPAR, Parallel Sysplex z/OS environments.
Expertise in real-time mainframe performance monitoring and capacity management.
Deep experience with RMF, SMF, WLM, and other mainframe performance tools.
Strong hands-on skills in REXX and JCL.
Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
Proven ability to troubleshoot and optimize mainframe workloads in real time.
Mastery of IBM z/OS and IBM Z hardware architecture, logical partition (PR/SM) configuration, and Sysplex clustering.
Advanced tuning of Workload Manager (WLM) policies, general processors, and zIIP configurations.
Ability to read, interpret, and extract metrics from SMF and RMF data records.
In-depth knowledge of how major workloads like DB2, CICS, IMS, and MQ consume system resources and impact transaction response times.

Responsibilities

Take a lead role to provide strategic consultation to business customers in defining or designing more complex business processes, functions and organizational structures.
Facilitate development of more complex enterprise business solutions that combine knowledge of particular business processes and issues, general technological options, and process facilitation techniques.
Participate in more complex enterprise strategy development, including environmental analysis, opportunity identification, value cases and business innovation portfolio development.
Take a lead role to specify and design large or more complex systems, solutions, networks, infrastructure elements, or processes.
Select appropriate design standards, methods and tools and ensure that they are applied effectively.
Review others’ system design to ensure selection of appropriate technology, efficient use of resources and integration of multiple systems and technology.
Establish policy for selection of more complex architecture components.
Evaluate and undertake impact analysis on more complex major design options.
Ensure that the system architecture balances functional, service quality and systems management requirements.
Use appropriate tools to contribute to the development of more complex architectures.
Take a lead role to produce detailed component requirements and translate them into detailed solutions/designs for implementation.