Senior Mainframe Developer & Modernization Lead

Introduction Apply to join the DPSCS team today for an exciting career with great benefits, pension, generous leave, competitive salary, and opportunities for advancement and professional growth. Grade 20 Location of Position 6776 Reisterstown Rd. Baltimore MD 21215 Position Duties Provide technical leadership in the development, maintenance, and modernization of DPSCS legacy mainframe applications. Lead code reviews and design sessions, ensuring best practices in mainframe architecture, performance tuning, and maintainability. Design, implement, and optimize COBOL, CICS, JCL, DB2, IMS, VSAM, and TSO-based components within production and development environments. Champion the use of development tools such as Xpeditor, File-AID, QMF, and TSO/ISPF to streamline debugging, testing, and deployment processes. Collaborate cross-functionally with project managers, QA analysts, business stakeholders, and vendors to ensure alignment between business requirements and technical solutions. Lead incident and problem management efforts, providing root cause analysis and long-term corrective action for production issues. Provide 24/7 on‑call support for mission‑critical systems and ensure operational continuity through proactive monitoring and redundancy planning. Contribute to modernization planning, advising leadership on strategies for integrating mainframe systems with cloud, API, or web‑based platforms. Prepare and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, including architecture diagrams, interface specifications, and process workflows. Represent the mainframe development team in technical planning sessions, vendor discussions, and governance meetings. Minimum Qualifications • Six years of experience, including two years designing, developing, testing, implementing, and maintaining applications with common programming languages or development tools, plus an additional four years converting data from project specifications. Candidates may substitute six credit hours of coursework in application analysis and programming for six months of the required experience. Graduation from an accredited high school or possession of a high school equivalency certificate and eighteen months of experience converting data from project specifications for the additional four years of experience. Graduation from an accredited high school or possession of a high school equivalency certificate and fifteen credit hours from an accredited college or university in systems analysis and application programming for the additional four years of experience. Experience on a year‑for‑year basis in operating computers, scheduling, controlling input and output or maintaining backups or data storage, processing data on computers, evaluating, implementing and maintaining hardware and software for a high school education. Possession of a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or related field and two years of experience designing, developing, testing, implementing, and maintaining applications with common programming languages or development tools. U.S. Armed Forces military service experience as a commissioned officer in Computer Systems Programming classifications or specialty codes for the required experience. Desired or Preferred Qualifications Experience supporting state or federal criminal justice systems or other regulated government systems. Familiarity with CCH modernization initiatives and legacy system migration frameworks. Knowledge of integration between mainframe systems and distributed, web‑based, or cloud platforms. Experience working within Agile, DevOps, or hybrid Waterfall environments. Strong understanding of security, compliance, and data governance within public safety systems. 10+ years of progressive experience in mainframe application development and support. Advanced proficiency in COBOL, CICS, JCL, DB2, IMS, VSAM, and TSO. Expert‑level experience with debugging and performance tools such as Xpeditor, File‑AID, QMF, and ISPF. Proven leadership in system modernization, migration planning, and legacy‑to‑modern integrations. Experience with MQ Series for message‑based integrations and inter‑system communication. Strong analytical, diagnostic, and problem‑solving skills, particularly in production support of 24/7 mission‑critical systems. Special Requirements Employees in this classification may be subject to call‑in 24 hours a day and may be required to provide a telephone number where the employee can be reached. Benefits Health insurance, dental, and vision plans offered at a low cost. Personal Leave — new State employees receive six personnel days annually (prorated based on start date). Annual Leave — ten days of accumulated annual leave per year. Sick Leave — fifteen days of accumulated sick leave per year. Parental Leave — up to sixty days of paid parental leave upon the birth or adoption of a child. Holidays — at least twelve holidays per year. Pension — State employees earn credit towards a retirement pension. As an equal opportunity employer, Maryland is committed to recruiting, retaining, and promoting employees who are reflective of the State’s diversity. Veterans, people with disabilities, and bilingual candidates are encouraged to apply. #J-18808-Ljbffr State of Maryland