Staff Systems Mainframe Engineer (Remote)

With a career at The Home Depot, you can be yourself and also be part of something bigger.

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 (AutoOps and/or OPS/MVS), and batch optimization (ThruPut Manager or equivalent).
• Extebsie Mainframe networking: TCP/IP (ports, devices, VIPA, SMTP), VTAM, NFS, and SAN (FCIP) / Fibre Channel / FICON connectivity.
• Experience in security administration: RACF and/or ACF2 including digital certificates and keyrings, plus authentication and data-protection tooling (Vanguard, Imperva, zSecure, ICSF cryptography).
• Performance, capacity & monitoring: RMF/SMF analysis, plus ISV monitoring tools (OMEGAMON and/or MAINVIEW).
• Scripting & customization: REXX, CLIST, system utilities, and exit routines.
• Modern management: zOSMF (z/OS Management Facility).
• Demonstrated ability to document platforms and cross-train peers to reduce single-person dependencies.
• Diagnostics / problem determination: Debug Tool for z/OS, Fault Analyzer, IPCS/GTF.
• Output management: Deliver, View, and spool/print operations.
• Storage / data-copy: BCV4 (ESAI) or comparable replication/copy tooling.
• Virtualization: z/VM operating system exposure. [added from James/Dimitri feedback]
• DB2 for z/OS: administration, DB2 utilities / IBM Admin Tool, DB2 Connect, replication (DPROPR), and SQL / SPUFI / QMF.
• DB2 specialty tooling (Broadcom / Platinum): Insight for DB2, RC tools (RC/Migrator, RC/Compare), Log Analyzer, Subsystem Analyzer, Plan Analyzer.
• Middleware: MQ Series / IBM MQ support.
• Modernization / configuration management: Ansible, Zowe, Python

Minimum Education:

• The knowledge, skills and abilities typically acquired through the completion of a bachelor's degree program or equivalent degree in a field of study related to the job.

Preferred Education:

• No additional education

Minimum Years of Work Experience:

• 8

Preferred Years of Work Experience:

• No additional years of experience

Minimum Leadership Experience:

• None

Preferred Leadership Experience:

• None

Certifications:

• None

Competencies:

• Action Oriented
• Being Resilient
• Business Insights
• Global Perspective
• Manages Ambiguity
• Nimble Learning
• Self-Development
• Collaborates
• Cultivates Innovation
• Optimizes Work Processes
• Situational Adaptability
• Communicates Effectively
• Drives Results
• Interpersonal Savvy

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