Lead Engineer - IBM MQ

Salary: Open + Bonus

Location: Chicago, IL or Dallas, TX

Hybrid: 3 days onsite, 2 days remote

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree
• 10+ years of hands-on experience administering IBM MQ in a complex enterprise environment.
• Strong understanding of core IBM MQ concepts (Queue Managers, Queues, Channels, Clustering, Publish/Subscribe, Security).
• Proficiency in administering IBM MQ on [Specify primary OS, eg, Linux, Windows].
• Proven troubleshooting skills in diagnosing and resolving complex MQ issues.
• Experience with Scripting languages (eg, Bash, Python, Perl) for automation.
• Understanding of networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, Firewalls, load balancers) as they relate to MQ.

Responsibilities

• Install, configure, and maintain IBM MQ software (Queue Managers, Clients) on RHEL.
• Perform version upgrades, apply fix packs, and manage patching cycles according to best practices and security requirements.
• Configure MQ objects, including Queue Managers, Queues (Local, Remote, Alias, Model), Channels, Listeners, Clusters, Topics, and Subscriptions.
• Monitor MQ system performance metrics, message throughput, and latency.
• Identify performance bottlenecks and implement tuning adjustments at the Queue Manager, channel, and queue levels.
• Analyze MQ logs and trace data to optimize configurations.
• Provide expert-level troubleshooting for MQ-related issues, including connectivity problems, message delivery failures, security errors, and performance degradation.
• Act as a primary point of contact for application teams regarding MQ connectivity and messaging issues.
• Respond to incidents, diagnose root causes, and implement corrective actions, participating in on-call rotation if applicable.
• Monitor resource utilization (CPU, memory, disk space, message depths) and forecast future capacity needs.
• Design and implement scalable MQ solutions, including clustering and distributed queuing, to meet growing business demands.
• Develop, implement, test, and maintain disaster recovery (DR) procedures for the MQ environment.