Mainframe Developer

Imagine stepping into a role where your deep technical expertise doesn't just maintain the status quo, but actively shapes the future of financial technology. Aquent is partnering with a premier financial services organization to find a visionary technologist who will spearhead the modernization of critical, high-volume transactional platforms. In this dynamic position, you will bridge legacy powerhouse systems with cutting-edge distributed architectures and leverage advanced AI tools to redefine productivity, making a tangible, lasting impact on systems that serve millions of users daily.

About the Partner

Our client is a pioneering force in the financial services industry, dedicated to innovation, excellence, and robust platform reliability. By partnering with Aquent, they are looking to welcome forward-thinking professionals who thrive on solving complex technical challenges and delivering high-quality, modern software solutions.

Employment Terms

Please note: This position is available on a W-2 employment basis only and is not open to Corp-to-Corp (C2C) arrangements. The client is unable to provide employment-based visa sponsorship or transfers for this role.

What You Will Do

• Architect, design, develop, and implement complex software solutions, focusing on high-performance interfaces between legacy systems and distributed applications.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to analyze business requirements and identify key opportunities for application modernization.
• Lead the strategy, design, and execution of comprehensive modernization efforts, including system migration, refactoring, and establishing seamless callouts to distributed platforms.
• Evaluate existing systems to propose and implement solutions that significantly boost performance, scalability, and maintainability.
• Develop and maintain automated processes to ensure consistency, efficiency, and reliability across platforms.
• Stay ahead of industry trends and emerging technologies, particularly in the realms of legacy modernization and AI-driven development.
• Mentor and guide technical teams, fostering knowledge sharing and skill development across both legacy and distributed technologies.
• Utilize AI coding tools and Agentic AI to drive personal and team productivity, championing a culture of innovation.
• Proactively address obstacles to ensure high-quality results are delivered consistently within project timelines.

What You Bring

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 10+ years of extensive experience in mainframe technologies, including COBOL, JCL, DB2, Datacom, SQL, SQL Stored Procedures, Messaging Queues (IBM MQ, Kafka), CICS, Easytrieve, REXX, and SORT utilities.
• 10+ years of experience as a software developer, with at least 3+ years in a lead or co-lead capacity.
• 3-4 years of hands-on experience with industry-standard tools such as Control-M, ChangeMan, FileAid, Xpeditor, TOAD, and SPUFI.
• Strong experience handling high-volume transaction processing, particularly within the brokerage or financial domain (including transactions processing, balances, and positions).
• Proven track record of participating in the architectural solutioning, design, and development of complex, enterprise-level software systems.
• Demonstrated experience utilizing AI and AI agents to significantly increase development productivity.
• Deep understanding of software architecture patterns, design principles, and scalability considerations.
• Excellent problem-solving, critical thinking, and cross-functional collaboration skills.
• Experience mentoring software development teams, including geographically distributed teams.
• Extensive hands-on experience with legacy application modernization strategies.

Nice-to-Haves

• Exposure to Distributed & Cloud technologies (such as GCP, Java, JavaScript, .NET, C#, Spring Boot, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL) and various AI tools.
• Familiarity with file transmissions, cloud environments, callouts from legacy to distributed services, security tokens, and authentication mechanisms.
• A strong preference for experience with high-volume brokerage transaction processing and posting, spanning both batch and real-time environments.