Senior Mainframe Developer

Job Summary Our client, a leading financial and life insurance provider, is seeking a Senior Mainframe Developer to join their team. This position is W-2 only. We do not work with third-party firms or C2C arrangements for this role.

Contract Details

Type: Full time/Direct Hire

Location: Cincinnati, OH

Work Arrangement: Onsite

Core Responsibilities

• Legacy: Mainframe CICS, APS, IMS, VSAM and JCL
• New: Mainframe COBOL w/ MicroFocus, Web UI, DB2, zOS Connect, IBM MQ Docker, GIT, Maven, Jenkins, JIRA Familiarity with JavaScript or TypeScript (Angular), jQuery, AJAX, HTML, CSS; Java and Spring
• Owns enterprise-level architecture for large-scale, mainframe-based business applications and establishes the technical blueprint for their continuous modernization and evolution
• Provides technical oversight and architectural direction for a team of 15-20 software engineers delivering complex application changes and modernization initiatives
• Ensures engineering teams consistently apply established design patterns, architecture principles, development standards, security practices, and software engineering best practices
• Provides technical leadership and hands-on development direction for complex legacy COBOL applications supporting critical business functions, including product configuration, billing, collections, servicing, claims, and other high-volume transactional processes
• Oversees integrations between core mainframe applications and downstream enterprise systems, including workflow, document generation, financial systems, data platforms, external services, and other enterprise applications
• Develops and executes a modernization roadmap for large-scale mainframe applications, transitioning highly batch-oriented legacy processing toward real-time, API-enabled and digitally accessible capabilities
• Evaluates, selects, and introduces modern technologies and architectural patterns to extend and modernize legacy platforms, including DB2 modernization, CICS transformation, web-based user interfaces, mainframe APIs, messaging, enterprise integration, and service-oriented architectures
• Leads the evolution of legacy applications while balancing modernization, operational stability, scalability, performance, security, and total cost of ownership
• Provides hands-on technical leadership across application architecture, software development, data engineering, system integration, discovery, data modeling, and technical solution design
• Guides engineers through complex technical problems and actively participates in design, development, code reviews, troubleshooting, and implementation as needed
• Manages and prioritizes product and sprint backlogs while providing technical direction to ensure timely delivery of high-value software changes
• Establishes and continuously improves agile engineering practices, fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, continuous improvement, and high-velocity delivery

Required Skills/Experience (Must-Haves)

• 15+ years of software engineering and technology change management experience, including 10+ years in technical leadership roles with experience communicating with senior and executive-level stakeholders
• 7+ years of experience leading teams of COBOL/mainframe software engineers across both Agile/Scrum and traditional waterfall delivery environments
• Extensive experience architecting, developing, modernizing, and supporting large-scale enterprise mainframe applications
• Demonstrated ability to simplify complex technology and application modernization initiatives while minimizing long-term technical debt and total cost of ownership
• Strong background leading modernization of legacy mainframe environments into more real-time, API-enabled, service-oriented, and web-accessible architectures
• Strong Agile mindset with demonstrated experience in continuous integration, iterative delivery, backlog management, and continuous improvement
• Proven ability to operate autonomously while providing effective technical leadership and building strong relationships across all levels of an organization
• Demonstrated experience leading large-scale software engineering teams through significant technology transformation and organizational change

Work Environment

Location: Cincinnati, OH

Work Arrangement: Onsite

Compensation & Benefits

Pay