Elite Technical is seeking a Mainframe Systems Engineer to support our client, a major Healthcare insurance organization in the DC Metro area. This is a contract to permanent opportunity and is primarily remote (onsite in Reston VA 1x per Quarter). Day to Day Functions Include:

- Daily monitoring of IT infrastructure and applications, as well as managing and maintaining the supporting technologies to ensure peak efficiency and reliability.
- Provide real-time monitoring for both Mainframe and Distributed systems in order to proactively detect and prevent service disruption.
- Responsible to diagnose and troubleshoot complex problems through resolution.
- Participate in Mainframes On-Call Rotation for Level-2 support and Preparation of RCA and Short-Term & Long-Term preventive actions
- Ensure proper procedures are followed to introduce changes and fixes into the operating environment and production libraries in order to ensure the lowest possible error rate.
- Provide timely notification of Level 2 system and application support teams as necessary. Independently works with system monitoring and diagnostic tools to ensure optimal performance of operating systems.
- Initiate and coordinate HealthCheck calls for problem identification and resolution.
- Track the Release Changes and Impacts to Operational Teams and update our Operational documentation accordingly

** Scheduling Tasks **
- Create or alter new and existing jobs and job schedules on the mainframe, Windows, and UNIX environments using the Scheduling package(s).
- Perform job restarts and file modifications with needed overrides and correct JCL syntax.
- Monitor the Scheduler queues to ensure job completion and/or error corrections have been performed.
- Update Scheduler Base Calendars to reflect current years processing and Holiday schedule.
- Contributes to the implementation of new technology and tools to increase productivity and performance with job scheduling
- Support upgrades and new releases to applications, platforms, and the scheduling product(s).

** Procedural **
- Develops, updates, and maintains operations systems manuals, documentations, policies, inventories, written procedures relative to installing, configuration, maintaining, and using Operating Systems, subsystems software, scheduling, and information ensuring compliance with Corporate security and audit regulations.
- Contributes to the establishment of SLAs and Metrics, monitoring performance against requirements to ensure performance targets are met.
- Provide timely information for audit requests for Data Center Operations.
- Follow IT Operations guidelines for audit reply review and approval.
- Work with SDLC teams on upcoming projects and Prepare -Operational support teams

** Technology Consulting **
- Provide technical assistance to all customers; IT Operations, Service Desk, and Application Programming areas to leverage technology and resolve issues/problems.
- Provides 365x24x7 on call support for assigned products and services.
- Uses available resources to research, resolve and recommend solutions for the complex and critical systems.
- Works with vendor technical support centers when troubleshooting product based issues.
- Work along with other IT engineers on day-to-day tasks and project Implementation Plans.
- Work with Tier-1/Tier-2/Tier-3 teams on Proactive and reactive actions on current and upcoming projects/applications
- Participates in Data Center Operations efforts for disaster recovery/business resumption initiatives and during Disaster Recovery Exercises.

Required Skills

- BS Degree. In lieu of a Bachelor's degree, an additional 4 years of relevant work experience is required in addition to the required work experience.
- 8+ years of professional IT Support Engineering experience
- Thorough knowledge of Cobol, DB2, JCL, CICS. One or more of the following: CA7, DFHSM, FTP, HMC, ISPF, JES2, NDM, NET MON, OPS MVS, SAR, TMON, TIVOLI, TPX, AFP, TSO, Visio, MVS Utilities, CLIST and REXX.
- Hands-on AWS Cloud Experience is HIGHLY PREFERRED
- Willing and able to mentor junior engineers
- Base UNIX and Windows commands and structure.
- Knowledge of DB2 commands, functions, control tables and DB2 subsystems, DB2 Stored Procedures and some understanding of data sharing.
- Strong CA7 skills to create and alter new and existing jobs and job schedules.
- Experience in meeting project deliverables on time with quality results.
- Strong organizational, interpersonal, and analytical skills.
- Capable in diagnosing and resolving complex problems using experience and standard tools and methods such as creating system dumps, trace analysis, and vendor support.
Daily monitoring of IT infrastructure and applications, as well as managing and maintaining the supporting technologies to ensure peak efficiency and reliability.
- Serve as backup for Shift Lead for a DCO monitoring shift and be responsible for completing the Shift Summary sheet for review and approval by oncoming shift DCO Lead
- Strong written and communication skills.
- Ability to maintain composure while working under pressure during major network and system emergencies.
- Proven ability to work within a team of technical and business professionals and work independently.
- Must be adaptable to change and able to coach less experienced staff.
- Knowledge to monitor and modify HSM, and manage ICF catalogs. Understanding of DFSMS, DFHSM, IDCAMS, VSAM, TSM, and ABARS concepts.
- Knowledge of Control-M scheduler is preferred since this is our enterprise Job scheduler Tool
- Knowledge of Datadog and Big Panda dashboards are preferred