Job Summary
The Middleware Messaging Engineer will be responsible for the end-to-end administration, maintenance, support, security, and modernization of critical messaging and middleware infrastructure. The role focuses on ensuring the reliability, availability, performance, and security of IBM MQ and related middleware environments while supporting business applications. The position will also contribute to cloud migration, containerization, automation, vulnerability management, disaster recovery, and infrastructure modernization initiatives across enterprise environments.
Key Responsibilities
• Install, configure, maintain, and administer IBM MQ software, including Queue Managers and Clients, on RHEL environments.
• Perform IBM MQ version upgrades, apply fix packs, and manage patching cycles in accordance with established security requirements and best practices.
• Configure and manage MQ objects, including Queue Managers, Local, Remote, Alias and Model Queues, Channels, Listeners, Clusters, Topics, and Subscriptions.
• Monitor MQ system performance, message throughput, latency, resource utilization, and message depths.
• Identify performance bottlenecks and implement tuning adjustments at Queue Manager, channel, and queue levels.
• Analyze MQ logs and trace data to troubleshoot issues and optimize configurations.
• Troubleshoot MQ connectivity issues, message delivery failures, security errors, and performance degradation.
• Serve as a primary point of contact for application teams regarding MQ connectivity and messaging issues.
• Respond to incidents, perform root cause analysis, and implement corrective actions.
• Participate in an on-call rotation as applicable.
• Forecast capacity requirements based on CPU, memory, disk space, message depths, and other resource utilization metrics.
• Design and implement scalable MQ solutions using clustering and distributed queuing.
• Develop, implement, test, and maintain disaster recovery procedures for MQ environments.
• Configure and manage high-availability solutions, including multi-instance Queue Managers and clustering.
• Participate in disaster recovery testing exercises.
• Implement and manage MQ security configurations, including TLS/SSL, Channel Authentication Rules (CHLAUTH), and Object Authority Manager (OAM).
• Manage certificates and keystores for secure communications.
• Collaborate with security teams to support compliance with applicable security policies and standards.
• Interface with IBM Support for problem resolution, technical guidance, and product information.
• Stay informed about IBM MQ product roadmaps, new features, and end-of-support timelines.
• Participate in planning, designing, and executing IBM MQ workload migrations to AWS.
• Support deployment and management of IBM MQ in containerized environments using Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift, MQ container images, and operators.
• Participate in infrastructure modernization initiatives related to messaging and middleware technologies.
• Develop and maintain Shell, Python, Perl, or similar scripts to automate routine MQ administration and deployment activities.
• Utilize automation and Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Ansible and Terraform for configuration and deployment management.
• Design, develop, deploy, and orchestrate installation and upgrades of middleware technologies, including Apigee and NGINX, using Terraform, Ansible, GitOps, and Kubernetes.
• Configure, support, and troubleshoot proxies on Apigee and applications on NGINX.
• Support Apigee API proxy design and deployment, developer portal management, OAuth 2.0/API key security policies, quota and rate-limit enforcement, environment promotion, and hybrid/X runtime administration.
• Configure and manage NGINX reverse proxies, load balancers, SSL/TLS termination, upstream health checks, rate limiting, and ingress controllers on Kubernetes/OpenShift.
• Configure and administer SFTP gateways and Managed File Transfer (MFT) solutions, including key-based authentication, directory and permission management, transfer monitoring, and downstream processing integrations.
• Deliver, support, and troubleshoot applications running in Rancher and OpenShift environments.
• Develop operational and environment provisioning pipelines using Jenkins.
• Support disaster recovery strategies, failover planning, and complex application architectures across multiple data centers.
• Work with CI/CD technologies including Harness, Artifactory, and HashiCorp Vault.
• Support J2EE application services in containerized and legacy environments.
• Utilize vulnerability scanning tools to identify and interpret vulnerabilities affecting middleware and API gateway environments.
• Apply security hardening practices and CVE-based patches to Apigee, NGINX, SFTP, and related middleware platforms.
• Create and maintain documentation for MQ architecture, configurations, standards, and operational procedures.
• Collaborate with application developers, system administrators, network engineers, database administrators, project managers, and other cross-functional teams.
Required Qualifications
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience administering IBM MQ in complex enterprise environments.
• Strong understanding of IBM MQ concepts, including Queue Managers, Queues, Channels, Clustering, Publish/Subscribe, and Security.
• Proficiency in administering IBM MQ on Linux/RHEL or comparable enterprise operating systems.
• Strong troubleshooting skills with the ability to diagnose and resolve complex IBM MQ issues.
• Experience with scripting languages such as Bash, Python, or Perl for automation.
• Understanding of networking concepts, including TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, and load balancers, as they relate to IBM MQ.
• 6+ years of experience designing, developing, deploying, and orchestrating middleware installations and upgrades using technologies such as Apigee, NGINX, Terraform, Ansible, GitOps, and Kubernetes.
• 6+ years of experience using Terraform and Ansible deployment models for middleware technologies.
• 4+ years of experience configuring and troubleshooting proxies on Apigee and applications on NGINX.
• Experience with Apigee API proxy design and deployment, OAuth 2.0, API key security policies, quota and rate-limit enforcement, environment promotion, and runtime administration.
• Experience configuring NGINX reverse proxies, load balancers, SSL/TLS termination, upstream health checks, rate limiting, and Kubernetes/OpenShift ingress.
• Experience configuring and administering SFTP gateways and Managed File Transfer solutions.
• 2+ years of experience delivering, supporting, and troubleshooting applications in Rancher and OpenShift environments.
• 2+ years of experience developing operational and environment provisioning Jenkins pipelines.
• Experience with disaster recovery strategies, failover planning, and complex application architectures across multiple data centers.
• Experience with CI/CD technologies including Harness, Artifactory, and HashiCorp Vault.
• Experience supporting J2EE application services in containerized and legacy environments.
• Experience with vulnerability scanning tools such as Nessus, Qualys, or equivalent technologies and interpreting scan results for middleware and API gateway environments.
• Familiarity with CIS Benchmark hardening and applying CVE-based patches to middleware platforms.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively within a team.
Preferred Qualifications
• Experience with IBM MQ on RHEL and containerized cloud environments.
• Experience with advanced IBM MQ features such as MQ Appliances, Advanced Message Security (AMS), and Managed File Transfer (MFT).
• Experience migrating or managing IBM MQ workloads in AWS.
• Hands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift and managing MQ in containers.
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tools such as Ansible or Terraform.
• Experience with enterprise monitoring tools such as Instana, Dynatrace, Splunk, Nagios, or Prometheus.
• Familiarity with other messaging technologies such as Kafka.
• Experience working in Agile and DevOps environments.
