Websphere Consultant

Role: MQ WAS Infrastructure Engineer

Location: London, UK

Duration: Contract

Job Description:

Your responsibilities:

• 6+ years of experience in IT infrastructure engineering, with at least 3 years focused on IBM WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Application Server administration.
• Experience supporting MQ and WAS migration projects, including containerization and version upgrades.
• Analyze WAS applications and provide migration recommendations for Liberty.
• Execute migration projects involving legacy to containerized environments (specifically OpenShift Container Platform)
• Collaborate with stakeholders to analyse requirements, assess current infrastructure, and design target architectures for migrations.
• Automate migration processes using scripting languages and suitable tools where applicable.
• Document migration processes, including pre- and post-migration configurations, testing plans, and troubleshooting scenarios.
• Communicate effectively with stakeholders, translating technical concepts into business terms to support decision-making
• Advanced proficiency in IBM WebSphere MQ (v8.x, v9.xMQ 9.2+) configuration, including queue managers, channels, topics, and subscriptions.
• Expertise in WebSphere Application Server (v8.5, v9.x) administration, including deployment of EAR/WAR files, JDBC/JMS configuration, and JNDI setup.
• Proficiency in troubleshooting MQ message flow issues, including dead-letter queues, channel errors, and message persistence.
• Hands-on experience with MQ and WAS migrations, including upgrading from older versions (e.g., MQ 7.5 to 9.x, WAS 7 to 9)
• Expertise in assessing and refactoring application configurations for cloud-native deployments, including containerized environments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift).
• Knowledge of migration tools such as IBM Cloud Transformation Advisor for migration analysis and planning.
• Experience integrating MQ and application workload with CI/CD pipelines using tools UCD, Jenkins, Harness, etc with OpenShift as a deployment target.
• Proficiency in monitoring tools such as IBM MQ Explorer, WAS Admin Console, Dynatrace, Splunk, or Prometheus for real-time performance tracking.
• Knowledge of log analysis and diagnostic tools (e.g., IBM Support Assistant, Log4j, Splunk) for troubleshooting and performance optimization.
• Expertise in securing MQ channels with SSL/TLS, mutual authentication, and encryption.
• Knowledge of WAS security configurations, including LDAP integration, SSO (e.g., SAML, OAuth), and role-based access control (RBAC).
• Familiarity with containerized MQ and WAS deployments using Red Hat OpenShift.
• Experience in migrating legacy WAS applications to containerized runtimes including WAS Liberty and Open Liberty.
• Knowledge in Apache Kafka integrations, Tibco configurations and migration knowledge
• Knowledge in agile methodologies, Scrum and Kanban dashboards.
• Good to have knowledge in Linux Basics.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to address complex infrastructure and migration challenges.
• Excellent communication skills to collaborate with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• IBM Certified System Administrator – WebSphere MQ or WebSphere Application Server.
• Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Administration or Kubernetes Certified Administrator (CKA).
• The ability to pick up and learn new technology approaches and make rapid decisions on the best way to use these technology advancements for the betterment of the overall security posture.
• Excellent communication skills as the ability to communicate effectively, constructively, confidently and professionally is key to the success in the role as is the ability to work with IT and Information Security teams and the wider business.
• Keen attention to detail and excellent analytical skills.
• Ability to actively manage workloads to meet business and department requirement.