Senior Mainframe Systems Programmer - CICS

About Us (Ensono) 

Ensono is an expert technology adviser and managed service provider. As a relentless ally, we accelerate clients’ digital transformation to achieve business outcomes that stand to last. Our dedicated team helps organizations optimize today’s systems across any hybrid environment with services such as consulting, mainframe and application modernization, public cloud migration and cloud-native development. With certified experts in AWS, Azure and Google Cloud and recognized as Microsoft Datacenter Transformation Partner of the Year, Ensono has over 3500+ associates globally and is headquartered in greater Chicago. 

We care about your success, offering comprehensive strategic and managed services for mission-critical applications. Our Advisory and Consulting services can help upfront with an application strategy or find the right places for your applications – whether it’s public, multi or hybrid cloud, or mainframe. And because we span across all mission-critical platforms, we can meet you wherever you are in your digital transformation journey, with 24/7 support when you need it. We are your relentless ally, flexing with you when challenges emerge so you don’t feel stuck in place. With cross-platform certifications and decades of experience, our technology experts have become an extension of your team so you’re continuously innovating – doing more with less while remaining secure. And that’s just the beginning. 

About Role 

• Provide premium CICS system programming support and services to Ensono mainframe clients. 
  The successful candidate will perform mainframe CICS software - system administration tasks and tuning to support our customers’ CICS environments. The individual will need to work with vendor personnel to achieve timely solutions of CICS related problems.  
  Work on full spectrum of CICS Systems Programming activities including but not limited to installation, customization, deployment, software tools integration, exploitation, performance analysis activities and CICS/Web interfaces. 

Responsibilities 

• Ensure CICS region reliability 

• Experience in CICS version upgrades/migration 

•  Perform CICS system problem analysis and resolution 

•  Provide CICS Web Support. Provide SSL/RACF Support. 

• Monitor System resources, make tuning recommendations 

• Provide timely problem diagnosis of application system dumps to identify root cause and recommend appropriate solutions 

• Fully capable of managing CICSPLEX resources such as workload balancing and real-time analysis. Fully capable of managing CICS regions in a CICSPlex. 

• Maintain CICS DR Plans. Support Disaster Recovery Tests 

• Maintain CICS SOPs, Runbooks and other documentation. 

• Define CICS resources: transactions, programs, templates, files, socket listeners, web services. 

• Create new CICS regions as needed 

• Work with application developers and QA support group to resolve issues and problems with regions. 

• Install and maintain CICS OEM  products for currency 

• Maintained OEM products at optimal maintenance levels, apply PTFs as needed. 

•  Coordinate maintenance and upgrades implementation with affected applications. 

• Perform OEM problem analysis and resolution 

Experience level - 8 + yrs. 

Mandatory Skills 

• 10 years hands on/industry experience. 

• Bachelor’s degree required and/or equivalent work experience. 

• 8+ years of professional experience in CICS administration and systems programming support. 

• Experience in building new CICS regions 

• Experience with configuring and managing CICS environments 

• Ability to develop innovation, strategies, processes, and best practices in software management 

• Experience with reviewing new versions of CICS for functionality, advising how they benefit the client 

• Strong analytical skills and understanding of CICS concepts, configuration, and tailoring. 

• Thorough working knowledge of products used to monitor performance of CICS regions. 

• Support planned (disaster recovery) and unplanned (emergency) database recovery activities 

• Knowledgeable in best practices of software management, maintenance, and documentation 
  Ability to evaluate change requests and determine impact to assigned clients and troubleshooting and solving production CICS related issues. 

Good to have skills. 

• Self-motivated and able to work independently. 

• Demonstrated ability to respond quickly and effectively to support requests from multiple clients 

• Must be able to multi-task and work under short deadlines and in high pressure situations. 

• Excellent communication skills (written, verbal and presentations) 

• Ability to work as part of a team, as well as independently.