Cognizant - Senior Mainframe Developer - JCL/COBOL

Job Summary:

We are looking for a Senior Mainframe Developer with extensive experience in enterprise mainframe application development, modernization, production support, and technical leadership.

The candidate will be responsible for designing and enhancing mission-critical applications, resolving complex technical issues, optimizing application performance, and providing technical guidance to development teams.

Key Responsibilities:

- Design, develop, enhance, and maintain enterprise mainframe applications.

- Analyze complex business requirements and translate them into technical solutions.

- Develop and maintain applications using COBOL, JCL, DB2, CICS, and VSAM.

- Design efficient batch and online processing solutions.

- Perform impact analysis for application enhancements and system changes.

- Review technical designs and provide recommendations on application architecture.

- Optimize existing programs for performance, reliability, and maintainability.

- Develop complex SQL queries and optimize DB2 database interactions.

- Analyze production issues and perform root-cause analysis.

- Lead resolution of critical application and batch-processing issues.

- Support application releases, deployments, and production implementation activities.

- Conduct code reviews and ensure adherence to enterprise development standards.

- Work closely with business analysts, architects, QA teams, and application support teams.

- Mentor junior and mid-level mainframe developers.

- Support modernization initiatives involving APIs, distributed systems, cloud integration, and legacy application transformation.

- Prepare technical documentation and support knowledge-transfer activities.

- Participate in estimation, planning, design reviews, and Agile delivery activities.

Technical Skills:

- COBOL, JCL, DB2, CICS, VSAM, SQL

- Mainframe batch processing, Online transaction processing

- Performance tuning, Production support, Change and release management

Modernization Exposure:

- Mainframe application modernization, API enablement, Legacy application integration

- Cloud migration initiatives, Mainframe-to-distributed system integration

- DevOps and automated deployment exposure

Required Experience:

- 10 - 15 years of hands-on mainframe development experience.

- Strong expertise in COBOL, JCL, DB2, and CICS.

- Experience working on large-scale enterprise applications.

- Strong production support and troubleshooting experience.

- Experience leading technical development activities.

- Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities.

- Ability to mentor technical teams and work with senior stakeholders.

Preferred:

- Experience in Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Retail, or other transaction-intensive domains.

- Exposure to mainframe modernization programs.

- Experience with MQ, API integration, or distributed technologies.

- Agile/Scrum experience