Senior Mainframe Developer – COBOL / CICS / JCL

Primary Skill: Mainframe Development – COBOL

Skill Level: Master

Location: Bucharest / All Romania

Work Model: Hybrid or Full Remote, depending on location

Language: English + French or English + German

Role Overview:

We are looking for an experienced Senior Mainframe Developer to support the maintenance, enhancement and evolution of financial products within the Banking and Insurance sectors.

The role focuses on the development and maintenance of applications running on IBM z/OS, with a strong emphasis on COBOL, and preferably CICS, JCL and DB2.

The successful candidate will be responsible for implementing corrective and evolutionary changes, analysing existing mainframe applications, resolving production issues and delivering reliable solutions in collaboration with technical and business teams.

Strong SQL knowledge is required, together with experience working with enterprise data storage technologies such as DB2, VSAM and IMS.

The ability to communicate and collaborate effectively across international teams is essential. Candidates must have English plus either French or German.

Key Responsibilities:

·       Maintain and enhance existing mainframe applications supporting financial products.

·       Analyse business and technical requirements and translate them into appropriate technical solutions.

·       Implement corrective changes to resolve application defects and production issues.

·       Implement evolutionary changes and enhancements to existing applications.

·       Develop and maintain programs using COBOL.

·       Work with CICS and JCL in mainframe application development and support activities.

·       Work with DB2 and other enterprise data storage technologies.

·       Analyse existing application code and data flows to identify the root cause of issues.

·       Perform debugging and technical investigation of mainframe applications.

·       Design and execute unit and integration tests for implemented changes.

·       Analyse and optimise SQL queries where required.

·       Support application deployment and release activities within established mainframe processes.

·       Investigate production incidents and implement corrective solutions.

·       Ensure changes comply with established development, testing, security and quality standards.

·       Maintain technical documentation related to application changes and support activities.

·       Collaborate with business analysts, functional teams, technical specialists and other developers.

·       Encourage effective communication and collaboration between team members to achieve project objectives.

·       Participate in knowledge sharing and contribute to continuous improvement of development and support processes.

Required Skills & Experience:

Mainframe Development

·       Minimum 2 years of relevant professional experience in Mainframe development.

·       Strong hands-on experience with COBOL programming.

·       Practical experience with IBM z/OS environments.

·       Experience with CICS is highly desirable.

·       Experience with JCL is highly desirable.

·       Experience with DB2 is highly desirable.

·       Ability to analyse, maintain and enhance existing mainframe applications.

·       Experience implementing corrective and evolutionary changes.

Database & SQL

·       Advanced knowledge of SQL.

·       Experience querying and manipulating data in enterprise database environments.

·       Good understanding of relational database concepts.

·       Experience with DB2 is preferred.

·       Ability to investigate application issues through database analysis and SQL queries.

Data Storage

Knowledge of enterprise data storage ecosystems, particularly:

·       Relational databases, preferably DB2

·       VSAM files

·       Hierarchical databases, particularly IMS

The candidate should understand how mainframe applications interact with different data storage technologies and be able to analyse related data flows when troubleshooting application issues.

Financial Services Experience

·       Experience working on applications or products within the Financial Services industry is highly desirable.

·       Experience in Banking and/or Insurance environments is an advantage.

·       Understanding of the requirements associated with high-availability and business-critical financial applications.

Language Requirements:

One of the following combinations is mandatory:

·       English + French, or

·       English + German

Candidates should be able to communicate effectively with international colleagues, customers and stakeholders in the required languages.

Collaboration & Communication:

·       Strong teamwork and collaboration skills.

·       Ability to work effectively within distributed and multicultural teams.

·       Ability to communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

·       Ability to encourage communication and collaboration between team members.

·       Proactive approach to knowledge sharing and problem solving.

·       Ability to work independently while contributing effectively to team objectives.

Nice to Have:

·       Experience with IMS.

·       Strong knowledge of VSAM.

·       Experience with large-scale banking or insurance applications.

·       Experience supporting production/mainframe applications.

·       Knowledge of mainframe scheduling and batch processing.

·       Experience with automated testing or mainframe testing frameworks.

·       Experience with modernisation or transformation of legacy mainframe applications.

·       Knowledge of DevOps practices in mainframe environments.

·       Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.

·       Experience mentoring junior developers or providing technical guidance.

Technical Environment:

·       IBM z/OS

·       COBOL

·       CICS

·       JCL

·       DB2

·       SQL

·       VSAM

·       IMS

·       Mainframe Batch Processing

·       Financial Services Applications

Key Competencies:

·       Mainframe Development

·       COBOL

·       CICS

·       JCL

·       DB2

·       Advanced SQL

·       VSAM

·       IMS

·       Application Maintenance

·       Corrective & Evolutionary Development

·       Production Support

·       Debugging & Troubleshooting

·       Financial Services

·       Banking / Insurance

·       Technical Analysis

·       Team Collaboration

·       English + French / German

Seniority Expectations – Master:

The Master-level Senior Mainframe Developer is expected to work with a high degree of autonomy when analysing, maintaining and enhancing complex mainframe applications.

The candidate should be capable of understanding existing COBOL-based financial applications, investigating technical issues, designing appropriate solutions and implementing corrective and evolutionary changes.

Strong COBOL and SQL expertise is essential, while practical knowledge of CICS, JCL and DB2 is highly desirable.

The candidate should also be able to contribute beyond individual development tasks by supporting technical problem solving, sharing knowledge and facilitating effective collaboration between team members.

Experience in Banking, Insurance or other Financial Services environments is strongly preferred due to the business-critical nature of the applications.