Job Description

Job Summary

ROLE

BAND

TECH STACK

EXPERIENCE

TYPE

Mainframe Architect

E3.2

Mainframe

13+ Years

Full-time

Role Purpose

Provide end-to-end technical leadership for enterprise solutions on the mainframe platform: translating business and non-functional requirements into scalable, secure and resilient architectures, and guiding engineering teams through implementation, modernization and operational readiness.

Key Responsibilities

Architecture & Design

• Own high-level and detailed architecture for complex mainframe applications, APIs, integrations and modernization initiatives.
• Convert functional and non-functional requirements into blueprints, component designs, interface contracts and implementation guidance.
• Select appropriate architecture patterns and assess trade-offs across scalability, performance, security, cost and maintainability.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise standards, approved platforms, reusable patterns and target-state roadmaps.

Technical Leadership & Governance

• Give hands-on architectural direction to development, QA, DevOps, security and support teams.
• Set coding, API, integration, logging, configuration, testing and deployment standards.
• Run architecture reviews, design walkthroughs, technical risk assessments and PoC evaluations.

Security, Reliability & Performance

• Embed secure-by-design across identity, authorization, secrets, data protection and interface security.
• Define resiliency patterns — retry, timeout, failover, HA and DR — plus performance and capacity targets.
• Ensure observability through structured logging, metrics, tracing, dashboards and alerting.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Facilitate technical discovery with business, product, security, infrastructure and vendor stakeholders.
• Communicate complex decisions clearly to engineering and leadership audiences.
• Maintain architecture artifacts, decision records, risk logs and technical roadmaps.

Key Responsibilities

Technology Focus — Mainframe

• Design, develop and support COBOL/CICS/DB2 batch and online components within agreed standards.
• Optimize batch windows, DB2 access paths and resource consumption to protect service levels.
• Support mainframe modernization, API exposure and integration with distributed and cloud platforms.

Required Technical Competencies

Core Skills

COBOL, JCL, CICS, VSAM, DB2 and z/OS utilities; batch and online program design and optimization.

Design & Architecture

Mainframe application architecture, modularization, API enablement and modernization/coexistence patterns.

Data & Integration

DB2 and VSAM data design, SQL tuning, file handling, data conversion, integrity and reconciliation.

Platform & DevOps

z/OS operations, scheduling, change management, environment promotion and mainframe-to-distributed integration.

Quality & Operations

Unit and regression testing, batch cycle validation, performance and MIPS optimization, defect RCA.

Experience & Qualifications

• 13+ years in software engineering, with strong enterprise mainframe design and delivery experience.
• Proven track record as solution, application or technical architect on complex programmes.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering or IT, or equivalent experience.
• Relevant platform, cloud, architecture or DevOps certifications advantageous, not mandatory.

Leadership & Behavioural

• Architecture ownership with a pragmatic, delivery-focused mindset.
• Structured problem solving and sound judgement under ambiguity.
• Clear communication and influence across technical and business stakeholders.
• Coaching mindset and strong stakeholder management.

Location-Specific Expectations

• Collaborate from an India delivery location with stakeholders across regions and time zones.
• Ensure standards, decisions and reusable patterns are documented and adopted across distributed squads.
• Support virtual workshops, technical governance and production-readiness reviews.

Key Deliverables & Success Measures

• Approved, traceable, implementation-ready architecture and design artifacts.
• Documented decisions, standards, risks, assumptions and mitigations.
• Solutions meeting agreed security, performance, reliability and operational readiness.
• Reduced technical risk via early validation, reusable patterns and automation.
• Timely resolution of blockers; improved engineering consistency and code quality.

Skill Requirements

Other Requirements