Senior Software Engineer - Mainframe

Overview Responsible at the expert level for mainframe software engineering, technical solution delivery, and technical requirements definition. Serves as an individual-contributor technical lead for critical mainframe applications and platforms. Primary Responsibilities: Technical Leadership & Engineering Delivery Lead technical design, development, enhancement, and support of mainframe applications while ensuring SDLC governance. Own technical decisions and delivery quality for assigned platforms, workstreams, or application domains. Partner with business and technology stakeholders to align delivery with priorities, requirements, risk controls, and enterprise standards. Software Engineering Excellence Deliver secure, efficient, maintainable, and resilient code using enterprise mainframe technologies. Lead mainframe design, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and support across batch and online processing. Establish coding standards, development practices, and quality expectations for maintainability, performance, security, and resiliency. SDLC, DevOps & Quality Engineering Review and approve solution designs, pull requests, code changes, peer reviews, source control practices, and deployment readiness. Define test strategy for mainframe changes, including batch validation, regression testing, data reconciliation, performance checks, and implementation verification. Promote CI/CD, functional automation, standardization, and DevOps practices to improve productivity and reduce manual effort. Technical Requirements & Solution Design Ensure requirements, solution designs, and implementation plans are complete, feasible, scalable, secure, and aligned with business and technical standards. Guide architecture, integration patterns, modernization, engineering processes, and technical decision-making across mainframe and connected platforms. Translate complex mainframe constraints into business, delivery, risk, and operational impacts while resolving technical blockers. Operational Excellence & Modernization Drive mainframe modernization, including API enablement, data integration, DevOps adoption, technical debt reduction, and incremental refactoring. Own technical health by improving resiliency, reducing defects, addressing technical debt, and guiding remediation plans. Ensure production readiness for batch schedules, online transactions, restart/recovery, monitoring, support documentation, and reliability improvements. Apply AI-assisted engineering and automation responsibly across SDLC and operational processes where appropriate. Communication & Collaboration Communicate architecture, technical decisions, progress, risks, and challenges clearly to technical and business stakeholders. Influence technical decisions across teams without direct authority and present solutions in architecture reviews, forums, and knowledge-sharing sessions. Maintain documentation and partner across business, product, architecture, infrastructure, security, operations, risk, and audit teams. Ensure technical changes comply with company risk, regulatory, policy, change management, security, data protection, access control, and operational risk standards. Escalate risk-related issues as needed and address audit and regulatory items on time. Support a culture of belonging, reflect the M&T Bank brand, maintain internal controls, and complete other assigned duties. Scope of Responsibilities Serve as an individual-contributor technical lead accountable for technical direction, design quality, code review, modernization guidance, and production stability; this role does not include direct people management. Own technical outcomes for assigned mainframe applications, platforms, workstreams, or domains, including solution design, delivery quality, operational readiness, and risk remediation. Influence engineers, architects, product, operations, security, infrastructure, risk, and audit partners through technical expertise, documentation, standards, and collaboration. Education & Experience Required: Associate’s degree and a minimum of 5 years’ systems analysis and/ or application development work experience or Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 3 years’ systems analysis and/ or application development work experience. In lieu of degree, a combined minimum of 7 years’ education and/or relevant work experience, including a minimum of 3 years’ systems analysis and/or application development work experience Required Technical Skills IBM z/OS, COBOL, CICS, JCL, VSAM, DB2 for z/OS, TSO/ISPF, SDSF, and Easytrieve+. GitLab for source control, change management, and CI/CD pipeline management. Mainframe debugging and analysis tools such as File-AID, Abend-AID, Xpediter, InterTest, or equivalent. Batch scheduling and enterprise integration experience with CA7, Control-M, MQ, or equivalent. Required Leadership & Delivery Experience Expert analytical skills specific to software engineering and application development. Experience leading technical initiatives, project deliverables, or engineering workstreams as an individual-contributor technical lead. Experience reviewing solution designs, technical requirements, code changes, and implementation approaches. Strong understanding of SDLC, testing, deployment, resiliency, security, and change management practices. Education & Experience Preferred: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a minimum of 5 years of systems analysis and/or application development experience. Preferred Technical Skills Experience supporting mainframe modernization through z/OS Connect, ZDIH, API enablement, event/data integration, technical debt reduction, and platform resiliency. Experience with mainframe DevOps, release readiness, automation testing, and AI-assisted engineering tools where appropriate. Preferred Delivery & Collaboration Experience Experience improving production stability, defect reduction, and engineering productivity. Experience influencing technical decisions and presenting to stakeholders across technology and business departments. Experience working within Agile delivery frameworks. M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $97,100.00 - $161,800.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate’s particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation. Location Buffalo, New York, United States of America Great companies have an enduring sense of purpose. At M&T, our purpose is a simple one: make a difference in people’s lives and uplift the communities we serve. M&T Bank Corporation is a financial holding company headquartered in Buffalo, New York. M&T’s affiliates offer advice, guidance, expertise and solutions across the entire financial spectrum, combining M&T Bank’s traditional banking services with the wealth management and institutional capabilities offered by Wilmington Trust. M&T Bank has a network of over 1,000 branches and 2,200 ATMs that span 12 states from Maine to Virginia and Washington, D.C. For more than 165 years, M&T has strived to take an active role in our communities and build long-lasting relationships with our customers. We are a bank for communities—combining the capabilities of a large bank with the care of a locally focused institution. As an employer of choice, we are proud to offer competitive benefits ranging from medical and retirement to forty hours of paid volunteer time, each year. Our core values – integrity, ownership, collaboration, curiosity, and candor – drive the work we do. We seek to further build upon our record of success by bringing in top talent and fresh skill sets while continuing to support the growth and development of all our team members. View M&T’s Human Capital Report to learn more. Ready to join our team? Submit your application today! If you are unable to apply through this site due to technical issues or need an accommodation to apply, please contact us at View email address on click.appcast.io for assistance. 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