Senior Mainframe Developer

Cognizant; Bentonville (AR); Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Job summary

Cognizant in Bentonville, AR is seeking a Senior Mainframe Developer to design, develop, and support critical mainframe applications using COBOL, DB2, JCL, CICS and SQL, delivering reliable transactional and batch processing.

You will collaborate with business analysts, architects and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions, optimize DB2 and job streams, and perform root-cause analysis to prevent incidents.

Qualifications

• Strong hands-on mainframe development experience with COBOL, DB2, JCL, CICS, and SQL.
• Experience developing, maintaining, and optimizing DB2 databases, stored procedures, queries, and batch-processing solutions.
• Experience with JCL job streams, job scheduling, error handling, recovery procedures, and production troubleshooting.
• Strong understanding of the software development life cycle (SDLC), including unit, integration, system, and regression testing.
• Experience with production support, incident management, root-cause analysis, performance tuning, and application reliability.
• Ability to translate business and functional requirements into maintainable technical solutions and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Experience contributing to system integration, application modernization, automation, or mainframe platform improvement initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, enhance, and maintain mainframe applications.
• Optimize DB2 databases, schemas, and JCL job streams.
• Analyze code, batch processes, and workflows for performance and maintainability.
• Troubleshoot production issues and perform root-cause analysis.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable solutions.

Skills

COBOL

DB2

JCL

CICS

SQL

SDLC

Performance tuning

Root-cause analysis

Agile

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

JCL job streams

Batch processing

Mainframe modernization tools

Job description

About the role

As a Senior Mainframe Developer, you will make an impact by designing, developing, enhancing, and supporting business-critical mainframe applications using COBOL, DB2, JCL, CICS, and SQL. You will collaborate with business analysts, architects, technical leads, project managers, and other stakeholders to deliver reliable, scalable solutions supporting enterprise operations, including retail and warehouse management environments.

In this role, you will:

• Design, develop, enhance, and maintain complex mainframe applications using COBOL, DB2, JCL, CICS, and SQL, supporting reliable transactional and batch processing.
• Develop and optimize DB2 databases, schemas, stored procedures, queries, and JCL job streams to improve performance, data integrity, system availability, and operational stability.
• Analyze application code, batch processes, and system workflows to identify opportunities for performance tuning, resource optimization, automation, and improved maintainability.
• Troubleshoot production issues, perform root-cause analysis, and strengthen exception handling, logging, monitoring, error recovery, and diagnostic capabilities to minimize recurring incidents.
• Collaborate with business and technology stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable technical solutions, while contributing to testing, technical documentation, code reviews, system integration, and mainframe modernization initiatives.

Work model

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 in Bentonville, Arkansas. Regardless of your working arrangement, we are here to support a healthy work-life balance through 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

• Strong hands-on mainframe development experience with COBOL, DB2, JCL, CICS, and SQL.
• Experience developing, maintaining, and optimizing DB2 databases, stored procedures, queries, and batch-processing solutions.
• Experience with JCL job streams, job scheduling, error handling, recovery procedures, and production troubleshooting.
• Strong understanding of the software development life cycle (SDLC), including unit, integration, system, and regression testing.
• Experience with production support, incident management, root-cause analysis, performance tuning, and application reliability.
• Ability to translate business and functional requirements into maintainable technical solutions and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Experience contributing to system integration, application modernization, automation, or mainframe platform improvement initiatives.

These will help you stand out

• Experience working with retail or warehouse management systems.
• Experience supporting large-scale, business-critical transactional and batch-processing environments.
• Experience mentoring developers, conducting code reviews, and promoting mainframe development best practices.
• Exposure to Agile delivery methodologies and collaboration across business and technology teams.
• Experience supporting mainframe modernization and improving integration, automation, scalability, or maintainability.

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Note: Certain roles may require candidates to attend in-person interviews at Cognizant offices or client locations, depending on project requirements.

Salary and Other Compensation:
The annual salary for this position is between 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.