Sr. Infrastructure Engineer - Mainframe

The Sr. Infrastructure Engineer will play a critical role in the Mainframe Pod of Symetra’s Infrastructure & Operations team. This position requires a strong focus on Mainframe Operations while serving as a key conduit between application teams and our managed service provider. The successful candidate will ensure reliable day-to-day operations, lead coordination of incident and request handling, and contribute to roadmap and modernization initiatives.

This role demands both hands-on technical expertise in mainframe environments and collaborative leadership skills to align stakeholders and keep systems running securely and efficiently.

Responsibilities

• Act as a primary contact for mainframe operations, overseeing daily health, stability, and performance of mainframe systems and tools.
• Serve as the bridge between application teams and the managed service provider, ensuring clear communication, timely resolution of issues, and effective coordination of changes and upgrades.
• Manage Service Requests and Incidents from application teams, providing hands-on troubleshooting and escalating to service providers when necessary.
• Manage and monitor ESP Scheduler activities, including scheduling, execution, and troubleshooting of batch and on-demand workloads.
• Partner with application teams to optimize and maintain ESP job schedules, calendars, and dependencies.
• Coordinate and oversee mainframe application upgrades and changes, partnering with app teams and the service provider to minimize risk and downtime.
• Provide primary support for key applications such as Endevor, Terminal Emulator, Control-D and related tools.
• Support audit and compliance activities, ensuring proper documentation and adherence to regulatory standards.
• Deliver architectural input and technical evaluations of applications, guiding app teams on mainframe-related best practices.
• Support real-time integrations and web services that connect distributed platforms to the mainframe.
• Participate in and influence mainframe modernization efforts, helping transition legacy workloads toward more agile, integrated, and automated approaches.

• Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems or other related field, OR relevant accredited technical certification, OR equivalent work experience.
• 6-9 years of cumulative, relevant experience
• Background in financial service is a plus.
• Agile/Scrum team experience.
• Exposure to infrastructure automation and DevOps practices.

Skills and Abilities Required

• Strong working knowledge of mainframe tools and technologies, including ESP Scheduler, Endevor, ACF2, CICS, DB2, MQ, COBOL.
• Proven experience in mainframe operations-system monitoring, job scheduling, troubleshooting, and support.
• Demonstrated ability to work across teams, serving as the liaison between service providers and internal app teams.
• Experience managing incident, problem, and change processes in a large-scale enterprise environment.
• Familiarity with web services and real-time mainframe integrations.
• Excellent communication, coordination, and documentation skills.