Senior Software Mainframe Engineer; Production Support

Senior Software Mainframe Engineer (Production Support)

Full time: 35 hours Out Of Hours / Stand By

Hybrid/North West

Want to change the world? Choose a career that makes a difference.

At The Co-operative Bank we are proud to be different. We are proud of our values and ethics, and our unique, customer‑led Ethical Policy that shapes everything we do.

Born out of the co‑operative movement over 150 years ago, you could say that doing the right thing has always been our thing. We do not just help people with their money, but help people fight for justice and the causes they care about.

We put people at the heart of every decision we make and there has never been a more important time for our Bank to stand up for the causes that matter most to our customers, colleagues and partner organisations.

We promote a hybrid working environment, which means you will work at our offices in the North West once a week and then remotely from home. To enable you to work from home, you will need have a suitable office set up which includes a desk and a chair in a location which is free from the interruptions of day-to-day life.

We are excited to announce an opportunity for a Senior Software Mainframe Engineer. As a permanent member of the Mainframe Production Support Team, you will be working at the heart of our core banking platform. You will be supporting applications that underpin our Retail and SME customer product suite, as well as functionality which is fundamental to the running of the Bank.

In this role, you will be responsible for providing day‑to‑day support and development to our Command‑and‑Control services, with a specific focus on the mainframe element of the solution. The successful candidate will play a critical role in ensuring the smooth functioning of mission‑critical applications in a 24x7 environment and contribute to software enhancements as necessary.

Providing front‑line technical support to the Business & end‑users, as well as triage and resolution of batch jobs which have terminated abnormally. Providing service stability and resilience – responding to issues related to incident/problem management, release deployment and Operational readiness on the Bank’s z/OS Mainframe platform. Developing and deploying code fixes for repeat incidents and known system issues.

• Develop a good technical understanding of applications running on the Mainframe, in order to provide subject matter support as well as guidance for technical queries and questions from the business regarding process and data flow.
• Problem management and incident resolution (providing front‑line technical support of the Bank’s Mainframe hub).
• Offer comprehensive support to end users, promptly identifying and resolving issues related to interfaces between various system components.
• Utilize your strong mainframe skills, particularly in COBOL/CICS development, to effectively troubleshoot, maintain, and enhance the existing applications.
• Experience performing design, build & test activity utilising COBOL/CICS on a Mainframe solutions environment would be highly favoured.
• Maintaining service stability – responding to issues related to incident/problem management, release deployment and Operational readiness on the Bank’s z/OS Mainframe platform.
• Service Delivery:
  Apply your technical expertise within a service delivery environment, balancing technical solutions with operational effectiveness to meet client needs and maintain the stability of supported systems. A good understanding of ITIL framework is advantageous.
• Repair of known and repeated incidents and root cause analysis of relevant risk events.
• Provide out‑of‑hours incident support on a rota basis (e.g. Production batch support).
• Good communicator, able to effectively articulate ideas in words as well as write clearly & concisely (transforming business concepts into technical specifications).
• Identify and justify opportunities for reducing the number of incidents raised and associated cost of change, helping lead the Bank toward efficient change…