Lead Engineer - L3 Middleware

Presidio, Where Teamwork and Innovation Shape the Future

At Presidio, we're at the forefront of a global technology revolution, transforming industries through cutting-edge digital solutions and next-generation AI. We empower businesses - and their internal customers - to achieve more through innovation, automation, and intelligent insights.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Escalation & Complex Incident Resolution

Serve as the definitive escalation authority for all P1/P2 incidents across the middleware stack

Lead war-room bridge calls; drive structured incident resolution with clear action plans and stakeholder communication

Perform deep-dive root cause analysis (RCA) using heap dump analysis, GC log review, network traces, and vendor diagnostic tools

Engage IBM and Oracle vendor support (PMR/SR) with detailed diagnostic packages; drive cases to resolution

Author comprehensive post-incident reports (PIR) with permanent corrective actions, timeline analysis, and SLA impact assessment

Establish and maintain the escalation runbook library; coach L1/L2 on escalation procedures and decision trees

IBM WebSphere Application Server

Design and maintain WAS Network Deployment cell topologies, high-availability configurations, and session persistence strategies

Perform advanced JVM tuning: GC policy selection (gencon, balanced), heap sizing, compressed references, JIT optimization

Diagnose complex class loader conflicts, memory leaks, thread contention, and connection pool exhaustion using IBM GCMV, IBM Thread and Monitor Dump Analyzer, and Eclipse MAT

Design and oversee WAS to WebSphere Liberty or OpenShift migration blueprints

Implement and validate security configurations: LDAP, RACF, SSL/TLS mutual authentication, JAAS, application security policies

Provide architecture guidance for WAS ND clustering, HTTP server (IHS) plug-in configuration, and WebSphere eXtreme Scale (WXS)

IBM MQ

Design IBM MQ cluster architectures including full repository, partial repository, and gateway queue managers

Architect MQ high-availability solutions: MQ multi-instance queue managers (RDQM), MQ HA with NFS/GPFS, MQ on OpenShift

Troubleshoot MQ cluster routing, message affinity issues, back-out threshold failures, and channel security (TLS/CHLAUTH)

Implement MQ Advanced Message Security (AMS), TLS mutual authentication, and channel authentication rules

Diagnose and resolve complex MQ performance bottlenecks: disk I/O saturation, channel congestion, large message handling

Architect migration path from on-premises MQ to IBM MQ on OpenShift or IBM Cloud Pak for Integration

IBM API Connect

Architect IBM API Connect v10 deployments on OpenShift: Management, Analytics, Developer Portal, and Gateway subsystem sizing and HA design

Design API lifecycle governance: version management, rate limiting, OAuth 2.0 / OIDC security schemes, API product publishing

Troubleshoot complex API policy assembly failures, GatewayScript errors, and DataPower integration issues

Implement API observability: custom analytics dashboards, alerting, correlation with backend service traces

Lead API Connect cluster upgrades, certificate rotation procedures, and disaster recovery testing

IBM DataPower Gateway

Architect multi-domain DataPower deployments for DMZ, internal, and B2B integration patterns

Design and troubleshoot complex XSLT transformations, GatewayScript policies, Web Service Proxies, and Multi-Protocol Gateways (MPGW)

Implement advanced security policies: XML threat protection, schema validation, WS-Security, OAuth token enforcement

Diagnose performance bottlenecks using DataPower probe, latency graphs, and IBM Support Advisor

Architect DataPower Gateway Operator deployment on OpenShift; manage DataPowerService CR lifecycle

IBM Event Streams (Apache Kafka)

Architect IBM Event Streams (Kafka) cluster topologies for throughput, fault tolerance, and geo-replication

Tune broker configurations: replication factor, ISR settings, log retention, consumer group rebalancing, and compaction policies

Diagnose consumer lag escalations, partition leadership imbalances, under-replicated partition alerts, and ZooKeeper/KRaft quorum issues

Design Kafka Connect pipelines, Schema Registry integration, and MirrorMaker 2 replication for DR

Implement Kafka security: mTLS, SASL/SCRAM, topic-level ACLs, and network policies on OpenShift

Lead Event Streams operator upgrades, topic schema migrations, and Kafka version upgrades on OpenShift

Oracle WebLogic & Service Bus

Architect Oracle WebLogic Server (WLS) domains: Administration Server, Managed Servers, Cluster configuration, and Node Manager HA

Design and tune WebLogic JVM parameters: heap, metaspace, GC policy, Work Manager thread priorities

Diagnose complex WLS issues: stuck threads, slow drains, deployment failures, EJB/JPA performance, JDBC multi-data-source failover

Architect Oracle Service Bus (OSB) pipeline patterns: message routing, content-based routing, SLA alerting, error handling frameworks

Troubleshoot OSB proxy service failures, business service timeouts, WS-Security policy mismatches

Design migration path from Oracle WebLogic/OSB to containerized Java runtimes on OpenShift (Quarkus, Liberty, Helidon)

OpenShift Platform & Middleware Migration

Lead end-to-end middleware platform migration to OpenShift Container Platform (OCP 4.x)

Design target-state architecture: Operator-based middleware management (IBM MQ Operator, DataPower Operator, Event Streams Operator, WebSphere Liberty Operator)

Define namespace strategy, resource quotas, pod disruption budgets, node affinity rules, and storage class selection for stateful middleware

Establish GitOps-based middleware configuration management using ArgoCD/Tekton pipelines

Design persistent storage architecture for stateful workloads: OpenShift Data Foundation (ODF), NFS, block storage for MQ, WAS, Kafka

Implement OpenShift network policy for middleware service mesh, ingress/egress controls, and TLS termination via Routes/Ingress

Lead containerization of legacy WAS ND workloads using IBM WebSphere Migration Toolkit and Transformation Advisor

Define migration waves, cut-over strategies, fallback plans, and parallel-run testing frameworks

Establish observability stack: OpenShift monitoring (Prometheus/Grafana), log aggregation (EFK/Loki), distributed tracing (Jaeger/Zipkin)

Architecture Governance & Advisory

Serve as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for all middleware technology decisions within the managed services engagement

Conduct quarterly architecture reviews: capacity planning, technology currency assessments, EOL/EOS risk reviews

Define middleware standards, design patterns, integration blueprints, and reference architectures for client organizations

Drive FinOps discipline for middleware workloads on OpenShift: resource right-sizing, license optimization, cost allocation

Participate in pre-sales and solution design activities for new managed services engagements

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education & Experience

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Software Engineering, or equivalent (advanced degree preferred)

10+ years of enterprise middleware platform engineering, architecture, and operations experience

5+ years of hands-on experience with IBM middleware products (WAS, MQ, API Connect, DataPower, Event Streams) in production environments

3+ years of experience with Oracle WebLogic and/or Oracle Service Bus in enterprise-grade deployments

3+ years of OpenShift or Kubernetes platform engineering experience including middleware workload containerization

Demonstrated experience leading P1 incident resolution and RCA for mission-critical middleware platforms

Proven track record of middleware platform migrations (on-premises to container / cloud)

Technical Depth

Deep expertise in JVM internals: memory management, GC algorithms, class loading, thread lifecycle

Proficiency with diagnostic tools: IBM GCMV, Eclipse MAT, IBM Thread and Monitor Dump Analyzer, JProfiler, VisualVM, yourkit

Strong Linux/Unix systems administration: kernel tuning, network stack, disk I/O performance, security hardening

Proficiency in scripting: Bash, Python, or Groovy for automation of middleware operations tasks

Deep knowledge of integration patterns: messaging, pub/sub, API gateway, ESB, event streaming, synchronous/asynchronous patterns

OpenShift/Kubernetes: Operators, Helm, CRDs, RBAC, network policies, persistent volumes, StatefulSets

CI/CD and GitOps: Jenkins, Tekton, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions

Security: PKI/TLS management, OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SAML, Kerberos integration with middleware platforms

PREFERRED CERTIFICATIONS

IBM Certified Solution Architect – IBM Cloud Pak for Integration

IBM Certified System Administrator – WebSphere Application Server (Advanced)

IBM Certified MQ Administrator

IBM Certified Associate Developer / Administrator – IBM DataPower Gateway

Oracle Certified Master – Java EE Enterprise Architect or Oracle WebLogic Server

Red Hat Certified Architect (RHCA) or Red Hat Certified OpenShift Administrator (EX280)

Red Hat Certified Specialist in OpenShift Application Development

Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) or Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)

ITIL 4 Strategist or ITIL 4 Managing Professional

BEHAVIORAL COMPETENCIES

Executive presence: ability to communicate complex technical issues clearly to C-suite and senior stakeholders

Crisis leadership: calm, decisive, and authoritative during major incidents with high business impact

Mentorship and knowledge transfer: proactive in upskilling L1/L2 engineers through coaching, shadowing, and documentation

Strategic mindset: balances tactical operational demands with longer-term platform modernization roadmap

Vendor management: skilled at driving IBM, Oracle, and Red Hat support organizations toward swift resolution

Collaborative: works effectively across organizational boundaries (application teams, network, security, infrastructure)

Commitment to continuous improvement: drives automation, self-healing, and observability maturity initiatives

Your future at Presidio

Joining Presidio means stepping into a culture of trailblazers - thinkers, builders, and collaborators - who push the boundaries of what's possible. With our expertise AI-driven analytics, cloud solutions, cybersecurity, and next-gen infrastructure, we enable businesses to stay ahead in an ever-evolving digital world.

Here, your impact is real. Whether you're harnessing the power of Generative AI, architecting resilient digital ecosystems, or driving data-driven transformation, you'll be part of a team that is shaping the future.

Ready to innovate? Let's redefine what's next-together.

About Presidio

Presidio is committed to hiring the most qualified candidates to join our amazing culture. We aim to attract and hire top talent from all backgrounds, including underrepresented and marginalized communities. We encourage women, people of color, people with disabilities, and veterans to apply for open roles at Presidio. Diversity of skills and thought is a key component to our business success.

At Presidio, speed and quality meet technology and innovation. Presidio is a trusted ally for organizations across industries with a decades-long history of building traditional IT foundations and deep expertise in AI and automation, security, networking, digital transformation, and cloud computing. Presidio fills gaps, removes hurdles, optimizes costs, and reduces risk. Presidio's expert technical team develops custom applications, provides managed services, and enables actionable data insights and builds forward-thinking solutions that drive strategic outcomes for clients globally. For more information visit

Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Presidio is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please send an e-mail to recruitment@presidio.com and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.

Presidio is a VEVRAA Federal Contractor requesting priority referrals of protected veterans for its openings. State Employment Services, please provide priority referrals to.

Notice of Massachusetts Candidates: It is unlawful in Massachusetts to require or administer a lie detector test as a condition of employment or continued employment. An employer who violates this law shall be subject to criminal penalties and civil liability.

Recruitment Agencies, Please Note: Presidio does not accept unsolicited agency resumes/CVs. Do not forward resumes/CVs to our career's email address, Presidio employees or any other means. Presidio is not responsible for any feeds related to unsolicited resumes/CVs.