Staff Systems Mainframe Engineer (Remote)

The Home Depot; Texas; Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

The Home Depot is seeking a Senior Staff Systems Mainframe Engineer to lead a team supporting our enterprise z/OS mainframe environment. You will install, configure, tune, and maintain z/OS and ISV products while driving reliability, security, and performance across a large Parallel Sysplex environment.

The role emphasizes cross-training, proactive problem-solving, and collaboration with product teams to ensure stable, scalable infrastructure and continuous improvement in operations and

Qualifications

• 8+ years supporting production enterprise z/OS mainframe infrastructure.
• Core z/OS systems programming: base control program, JES2/JES3, JCL, IPL, JES2 commands, and batch management.
• SMP/E for product installation and maintenance.
• Hardware: z/Architecture hardware experience across z13 / z14 / z15 / z16.
• Parallel Sysplex / High Availability: Sysplex Distributor, Coupling Facility, GRS (Global Resource Serialization), and Workload Manager (WLM).
• I/O configuration: HCD / HCM administration of IODF / IOCDS / IOCP.
• Workload automation & scheduling: CA-7 / CA-11, automated operations tooling (Automated ops).

Responsibilities

• Lead configuration, debugging, and support for information technology solutions; manage field and corporate rollouts.
• Plan, analyze, and design infrastructure architectures including on-prem and mainframe components.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure as code and AI models for continuous improvement; drive strategic technology initiatives.
• Provide mentorship, participate in architecture reviews, and produce internal documentation; support operations and incident response.

Skills

Mainframe expertise

Systems programming

Mentoring

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

z/OS

JES2/JES3

JCL

IPL

SMP/E

CA-7

CA-11

Sysplex Distributor

Coupling Facility

GRS

WLM

HCD/HCM

IODF/IOCDS/IOCP

Job description

Position Purpose:

The Staff Systems Mainframe Engineer is responsible for leading a team of engineers designing, building, and supporting The Home Depot's technical infrastructure of hardware and system software that drives the success of Home Depot and our customers.

Senior z/OS mainframe engineer responsible for the reliability, performance, and security of our enterprise mainframe environment. This role backfills critical expertise lost to recent retirements and eliminates single-person dependencies across Parallel Sysplex, scheduling and automation, networking, security, and diagnostics. The ideal candidate is a broad z/OS generalist who installs, configures, tunes, and maintains z/OS and ISV products, operates independently across multiple platforms, and actively cross-trains the team to reduce single-point-of-failure risk.

Key Responsibilities:

• 25% Delivery and Execution - Leads configuration, debugging, and support for information technology solutions; Leads field and corporate rollouts of technology; Leads the stand up of necessary system software, hardware, and equipment (physical or virtual) to meet changing infrastructure needs; Creates and optimizes specifications for technology solutions; Produces and manages purchase requests for hardware and software; Leads development of test suites (functional, destructive, etc) to enable successful rapid deployment of infrastructure as code to production
• 15% Learning - Keeps abreast of innovations and industry trends as well as changes to internal systems and determines how they impacts tools, training, and support necessary to keep systems up, running, and secure; Participates in and contributes to learning activities around modern systems engineering core practices (communities of practice); Proactively views articles, tutorials, and videos to learn about new technologies and best practices being used within other technology organizations
• 30% Planning and Analysis - Researches and analyzes business trends and behavioral data to identify strategic opportunities for improvements and new initiatives; Leads the evaluation, development, and recommendation of specific strategic technology to provide cost-effective solutions that meet THD requirements; Researches and designs best fit infrastructure, network, database, cloud, AI, and security architectures for products; Proactively creates and maintains infrastructure as code and AI models for continuous improvement; Participates in strategic project planning and management across multiple efforts; Develops formal training courses
• 30% Support and Enablement - Collaborates with product and project teams to understand needs and enable them with infrastructure; Supports technology architecture design review efforts for project and product teams; Leverages tooling and custom applications to monitor the operational status of applications, infrastructure, networks, databases, and security; optimizes and tunes performance as appropriate; Drives root cause analysis, debugging, support, and post-mortem analysis for security incidents and service interruptions; Maintains, upgrades, and supports existing systems and infrastructure to ensure operational stability; Acts as a vendor liaison, owning resourcing, issue management, and documentation; Leads the production of in-house documentation around solutions; Provides application support for software running in production; Acts as a mentor to more junior Systems Engineers; Drives converting KB articles into AI models; Drives changes to analytic models used to analyze performance

Direct Manager/Direct Reports:

• This position typically reports to Systems Engineer Manager or Sr Manager
• This position typically has 0 Direct Reports

Travel Requirements:

• No travel required.

Physical Requirements:

• Most of the time is spent sitting in a comfortable position and there is frequent opportunity to move about. On rare occasions there may be a need to move or lift light articles.

Working Conditions:

• Located in a comfortable indoor area. Any unpleasant conditions would be infrequent and not objectionable.

Minimum Qualifications:

• Must be eighteen years of age or older.
• Must be legally permitted to work in the United States.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 8+ years supporting production enterprise z/OS mainframe infrastructure.
• Core z/OS systems programming: base control program, JES2/JES3, JCL, IPL, JES2 commands, and batch management.
• Software installation & maintenance: hands-on experience with SMP/E for product installation and maintenance.
• Hardware: z/Architecture hardware experience across z13 / z14 / z15 / z16.
• Parallel Sysplex / High Availability: Sysplex Distributor, Coupling Facility, GRS (Global Resource Serialization), and Workload Manager (WLM).
• I/O configuration: HCD / HCM administration of IODF / IOCDS / IOCP.
• Workload automation & scheduling: CA-7 / CA-11, automated operations tooling (Au