Director, Mainframe DB2 Performance and Capacity

Job Description:

Note: Fidelity will not provide immigration sponsorship for this position.

Director, Mainframe DB2 Performance and Capacity

Primary Domain:

DB2 for z/OS Performance and Capacity

Business Overview

The Fidelity Mainframe Capacity and Performance team is responsible for capacity modeling and forecasting, performance analysis, system configuration tuning, monitoring, and L2/L3 problem determination supporting Fidelity’s large IBM z Systems infrastructure. The team supports critical online and batch applications across the enterprise and works closely with business partners, Mainframe Hosting, DBMS, CICS, MQ, Storage, Network, application teams, IBM, and other strategic vendors.

This role is focused on the DB2 for z/OS performance and capacity domain, including DDF/DBAT behavior, SQL/package performance, buffer pool and memory considerations, WLM and zIIP optimization, workload growth forecasting, stress-test assessment, modernization measurement, replication impacts, and production resiliency. The role requires both deep DB2 technical expertise and the ability to translate complex performance and capacity findings into clear business, resiliency, and cost recommendations for senior leadership.

Position Description

The Associate will focus on leading DB2 performance and capacity analysis for Fidelity’s mainframe environments, providing end-to-end analysis, modeling, tuning recommendations, and strategic guidance for complex multi-tier applications running on z/OS and accessing DB2 through CICS, batch, DDF/JDBC, stored procedures, replication, and cloud-to-mainframe integration patterns.

A major responsibility of this role is to lead and/or participate in the capacity and performance analysis of new technologies and production changes that affect DB2 workload behavior. This includes developing KPI projection models, analyzing application and infrastructure change impacts, assessing failover/failback behavior, evaluating DB2 subsystem and DDF configuration choices, and driving practical recommendations that balance customer experience, resiliency, platform capacity, and software/hardware cost.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role. The Director is expected to guide engineers and partner business application teams through high-severity incidents, performance reviews, stress-test findings, modernization measurement, and ongoing capacity routines. The role also requires executive communication skills, vendor engagement, and the ability to influence application, infrastructure, and architecture decisions using data.

Primary Responsibilities and Skills

• Lead DB2 for z/OS performance and capacity analysis across production, non-production, and business-event scenarios, including market open, batch, stress testing, cloud failback, and modernization events.
• Analyze DDF/JDBC and DBAT behavior, including MAXDBAT limits, high-water marks, connection patterns, client application identifiers, program/package attribution, remote IP/user attribution, and DB2 profile usage.
• Assess DB2 subsystem configurations and tuning opportunities including ZPARMs, buffer pools, EDM/storage considerations, below-the-bar/private storage, logging, lock/latch contention, thread management, and workload concurrency.
• Perform SQL/package/program analysis for high CPU, increased get pages, access path changes, rebind/code-change impacts, stored procedure behavior, and regression findings from QA/stress-test cycles.
• Partner with application, DBMS, CICS, MQ, network, storage, and modernization teams to connect DB2 performance symptoms to end-to-end application flow, topology, failover behavior, replication latency, and customer impact.
• Use SMF, RMF, DB2 accounting/statistics, CICS/DBMS logs, SYSVIEW, Broadcom Detector/Insight, Strobe/iStrobe, IntelliMagic, MXG/SAS, Grafana, Power BI, and other tools to build objective performance findings and recommendations.
• Develop forecasting and capacity models that connect business KPIs, transaction volumes, DB2 CPU/zIIP consumption, MSU/MIPS impact, DDF concurrency, batch demand, and application modernization activity.
• Lead production incident analysis and problem management for DB2-related performance, resiliency, and capacity events, including timeline reconstruction, root-cause support, next-step recommendations, and preventive controls.
• Evaluate and recommend DB2 workload protection patterns, including safe mode/failback controls, WLM policy changes, DDF routing, DB2 profiles/resource limits, and test access controls.
• Provide technical leadership for DB2 performance governance during major initiatives such as Db2 version/function-level changes, z/OS upgrades, z17 migration, IntelliMagic rollout, Broadcom/BMC/IBM tool strategy, replication changes, and cloud migration/modernization.
• Translate detailed DB2 and mainframe findings into concise leadership-level summaries, risk/benefit options, decision points, and clear actions for Business Unit partners, CIO stakeholders, Finance, and vendor management.
• Provide escalation support and participate in after-hours or high-severity support as needed for critical production events and major business days.

The Expertise You Have

• Strong working experience as a DB2 for z/OS performance, capacity, systems programming, DBA, or infrastructure engineering leader in a large-scale, multi-Sysplex enterprise environment.
• Deep understanding of DB2 for z/OS architecture, distributed data facility (DDF), DBAT/thread processing, package/program attribution, SQL access paths, DB2 statistics/accounting records, and DB2 subsystem behavior under stress.
• Solid knowledge of IBM z/OS, Parallel Sysplex, WLM, PR/SM, LPAR configuration, zIIP eligibility, storage/memory behavior, DASD/FICON interactions, and how these areas affect DB2 throughput and resiliency.
• Experience analyzing SMF/RMF and DB2 performance data using tools such as SAS/MXG, SYSVIEW, IntelliMagic, OMEGAMON, Broadcom Detector/Insight, Strobe/iStrobe, Grafana, Power BI, Python, R, SQL, or equivalent platforms.
• Ability to model current and future capacity needs using workload trends, business volumes, application roadmaps, stress-test data, and historical performance results.
• Experience with mainframe application ecosystems including CICS, MQ, WAS, batch, replication technologies such as QRep/IIDR/CDC, and cloud-to-mainframe integration patterns.
• Experience with incident management, change management, capacity governance, problem management, and disciplined technical decision-making in a mission-critical production environment.
• Vendor-facing experience with IBM, Broadcom/CA, BMC, IntelliMagic, or equivalent mainframe performance, capacity, and observability vendors is strongly preferred.

The Skills You Bring

• Advanced analytical mindset with the ability to separate symptoms from root cause across DB2, z/OS, CICS, MQ, storage, network, replication, and application layers.
• Strong data storytelling skills; able to turn raw SMF/RMF/DB2 metrics into useful recommendations, options, and executive decisions.
• Collaborative leadership style with the ability to build trust with DBMS, application, architecture, operations, vendor, and business-unit partners.
• Practical engineering judgment; able to balance performance optimization, resiliency, customer experience, operational simplicity, and cost.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain DB2 performance topics in business terms without losing technical accuracy.
• Self-motivated, hands‑on, and comfortable operating with ambiguity while building repeatable practices, dashboards, runbooks, and decision frameworks.
• Ability to mentor engineers, raise team capability, and help develop the next generation of mainframe performance and capacity talent.

The Value You Deliver

• Improves customer experience and platform resiliency by proactively identifying DB2 performance constraints before they become production incidents.
• Reduces avoidable capacity and software cost by connecting DB2 tuning, workload behavior, and MSU/MIPS consumption to specific application and infrastructure recommendations.
• Strengthens modernization execution by providing objective before/after measurement for CICS-to-cloud, DB2 replication, DDF traffic, batch optimization, and decommissioning initiatives.
• Provides reliable DB2 performance governance for major business events, production changes, stress tests, and large platform initiatives.
• Creates repeatable DB2 capacity routines, reports, dashboards, and playbooks that reduce key-person dependency and improve operational readiness.
• Helps senior leaders make informed decisions by presenting clear options, risks, tradeoffs, and quantified recommendations.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology, Information Systems, Mathematics, Statistics, or a closely related field preferred; equivalent experience will be considered.
• 10 plus years of technology experience with significant hands‑on experience in IBM z/OS and DB2 for z/OS performance, capacity, systems programming, database engineering, or production support.
• Experience in a large financial-services, high-volume transaction processing, or mission-critical enterprise environment is strongly preferred.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex cross-functional technical analysis and communicating recommendations to senior leadership.

Expected Knowledge

Core DB2

DB2 for z/OS, DDF, DBAT, SQL/package performance, access paths, statistics/accounting records, stored procedures, buffer pools, locking, logging, utilities

Mainframe Platform

z/OS, Parallel Sysplex, WLM, PR/SM, LPARs, zIIP, RMF/SMF, DASD/FICON, memory/real storage, JES/batch interactions

Tools

SAS/MXG, SYSVIEW, IntelliMagic, OMEGAMON, Broadcom Detector/Insight, Strobe/iStrobe, Grafana, Power BI, Python, R, SQL, JCL, REXX

Adjacent Domains

CICS, MQ, WAS, batch, replication, QRep, IIDR/CDC, cloud-to-mainframe, IOM/CAM failback patterns

Leadership

Incident/problem management, change governance, vendor engagement, executive communication, mentoring, technical decision facilitation

Fidelity’s Onsite Working Model

Fidelity’s Onsite Working Model
Fidelity is transitioning to a full-time onsite working model through a phased rollout across regions and roles. Currently, some roles and locations require 100% onsite presence, while others require less. Onsite expectations are likely to evolve as the rollout continues. This transition does not apply to fully remote roles.

Information Technology

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