Mainframe IBM MQ Engineer - JKNJ

Job Title: Mainframe IBM MQ Engineer
Location: Chandler, AZ; Plano, TX; Charlotte, NC; Jersey City, NJ
Job Type: Contract
Duration: 6–12 Months
Work Arrangement: Hybrid | 3 Days Onsite and 2 Days Work From Home

Pay Rate: $55–$60/hr

Note: This job doesn't offer any benefits.

Position Overview

We are seeking an experienced Mainframe IBM MQ Engineer with strong hands-on expertise in IBM MQ for z/OS to support highly available, business-critical mainframe environments. The role focuses on MQ administration, configuration, security, performance tuning, troubleshooting, and lifecycle management.

Required Qualifications

• Strong hands-on experience with IBM MQ for z/OS.
• Strong knowledge of queue managers, local and remote queues, transmission queues, MQ channels, channel initiators, listeners, and dead-letter queues.
• Experience with distributed queuing, MQ clustering, MQ security, logging, recovery, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
• Strong working knowledge of IBM z/OS.
• Experience developing and maintaining JCL.
• Good understanding of TCP/IP and network connectivity.
• Experience troubleshooting MQ issues and supporting production environments.
• Experience supporting high-volume, business-critical mainframe systems.
• Understanding of change, incident, and problem management processes.

Responsibilities

IBM MQ Administration & Configuration

• Install, configure, administer, and support IBM MQ for z/OS environments.
• Create, configure, and maintain queue managers, local and remote queues, transmission queues, channels, listeners, and other MQ objects.
• Perform routine MQ administration, monitoring, maintenance, and operational support.
• Configure and maintain distributed queuing between queue managers.
• Administer and troubleshoot IBM MQ clusters and messaging infrastructure.

Monitoring & Troubleshooting

• Monitor queue depths, channel status, queue manager availability, message flow, and overall infrastructure health.
• Troubleshoot channel failures, queue manager issues, message delivery problems, and messages remaining on queues.
• Resolve connectivity issues, security and authorization failures, and application-to-MQ communication problems.
• Perform problem determination and root cause analysis for production incidents.
• Support MQ recovery, restart, and service restoration activities.

Security & Connectivity

• Implement and maintain MQ security in collaboration with security and RACF teams.
• Configure and troubleshoot channel authentication, connection authentication, TLS, and MQ access controls, where applicable.
• Support TCP/IP connectivity and secure communication between applications and queue managers.
• Maintain reliable MQ integration with mainframe applications and enterprise infrastructure.

Performance, Maintenance & Resiliency

• Analyze MQ performance and implement tuning recommendations.
• Support MQ upgrades, migrations, patching, maintenance, and lifecycle management.
• Support high availability, disaster recovery, and business continuity requirements.
• Develop and maintain JCL, automation scripts, operational procedures, and technical documentation.
• Participate in production implementations, change management, incident management, and problem management.
• Provide on-call and after-hours support for critical production issues as required.

Application & Infrastructure Integration

• Support IBM MQ integration with CICS and IMS applications.
• Collaborate with application, network, security, operations, and systems programming teams.
• Support MQ communication across complex enterprise mainframe environments.
• Ensure reliable messaging services for high-volume, business-critical applications.

Preferred Technical Skills

• CICS and IBM MQ integration.
• IMS and IBM MQ integration.
• RACF security administration.
• TCP/IP networking.
• REXX scripting.
• TSO/ISPF.
• SDSF.
• SMP/E software maintenance.
• IBM Sysplex environments.
• MQ Queue Sharing Groups.
• Automation and monitoring tools.
• Enterprise scheduling tools such as CA7 or TWS.
• Disaster recovery and business continuity.
• Performance monitoring and capacity management.
• Managed File Transfer (MFT).