Mainframe Modernization SME

Introduction

A career in IBM Consulting is built on long-term client relationships and close collaboration worldwide.

You'll work with leading companies across industries, helping them shape their hybrid cloud and AI journeys. With support from our strategic partners, robust IBM technology, and Red Hat, you'll have the tools to drive meaningful change and accelerate client impact. At IBM Consulting, curiosity fuels success. You'll be encouraged to challenge the norm, explore new ideas, and create innovative solutions that deliver real results.

Our culture of growth and empathy focuses on your long-term career development while valuing your unique skills and experiences.

Your role and responsibilities

Must currently play a leadership or decision maker role on one or more technical teams, evaluating technologies or design patterns and overseeing their implementation from concept to working product. Responsible for hands-on technical delivery of mainframe modernization engagements including legacy code analysis, cloud-native microservices architecture, database migration, batch processing migration, Kubernetes deployment, and CI/CD automation. Must be able to independently analyze legacy COBOL/JCL/VSAM systems, design and implement modern Java/Spring Boot replacements, build and manage relational database schemas, deploy to cloud Kubernetes environments, and troubleshoot end-to-end across the full modernization stack.

Support marketing activities for related offerings. Assist with technical write-ups for proposal responses. Participate in weekly and monthly team meetings. Other similar professional duties may be assigned as needed. Support delivery of mainframe modernization engagements.

Required education

Bachelor's Degree

Preferred education

Bachelor's Degree

Required technical and professional expertise

* Must possess at time of hire and have the ability to maintain a Secret Clearance

* Provide methods, tools, techniques expertise related to mainframe modernization. Lead hands-on technical delivery of legacy mainframe-to-cloud migration projects including COBOL/JCL inventory analysis, cloud-native microservices development, relational database schema design, Kubernetes deployment, and CI/CD pipeline engineering.

* Ability to read, analyze, and decompose production COBOL programs, JCL jobs, VSAM datasets, copybooks (COPY/COPYLIB), and embedded SQL. Understand mainframe batch processing patterns including sequential file I/O (QSAM), KSDS/ESDS/RRDS VSAM operations, SORT/MERGE utilities, IDCAMS, IEBGENER, and conditional step execution via return codes and COND parameters. Map legacy data structures (PIC clauses, COMP-3 packed decimal, EBCDIC encoding, implied decimals, overpunch signs, binary COMP fields) to modern equivalents.

Understand JCL PROC parameterization, GDG management, and JES job scheduling.

* Design and implement microservices using modern frameworks (Spring Boot, Spring Batch, or equivalent). Build batch processing jobs that replicate mainframe batch pipelines including chunk-oriented processing, database-driven paging readers, step-scoped components, and job parameterization. Implement ORM entity mappings with correct schema qualification, data type precision/scale for financial numeric types, and JSON column mappings. Build REST APIs for job triggering and operational status.

* Design and maintain relational schemas across multiple database schemas. Write and debug complex SQL including multi-table JOINs, window functions, aggregations, and conditional filtering. Manage database initialization scripts, ALTER TABLE migrations for running databases, and schema drift detection by comparing ORM entity definitions against actual database DDL dumps. Handle UUID primary keys, generated columns, partial indexes, sequence management, and schema-level isolation for batch vs.

transactional data.

* Deploy containerized microservices to Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, GKE, or Open Shift). Build Helm charts with Config Maps, Secrets, Ingress, and service definitions. Configure managed relational database services, object storage, and container registries. Understand government cloud constraints including…