Job Description

Ref: AH/2000160

Location: West Berks

Salary: c. 40k + extensive benefits

Our client is the industry leader in state-of-the-art COBOL development solutions, with market leading products spanning traditional business applications development, application understanding, and user-interface transformation to transactional systems, and integration with contemporary technologies & platforms such as Web Services, J2EE, .NET & XML. With over 1 million end-users worldwide and 70,000 licensed products around the world, the company offers unsurpassed breadth of platform support, performance and scalability.

Job Role

This is a position for an experienced person to join the Global Product Support group, focused on Mainframe Solutions, Modernisation and COBOL product lines. The Global Product Support team supports customers using the company’s software to emulate IBM mainframe technologies for development and enhancement, with subsequent deployment either back to the mainframe or to distributed platforms.

The 2nd Line Support Engineers provide front-line technical support across the product range, helping to resolve issues from customers in Europe, Middle East, Africa, South America and India. Our client is looking for individuals who can contribute in-depth technical skills on IBM Mainframes as well as Windows and/or Unix. You will receive training in the company’s products. You will possess a strong aptitude and real enthusiasm for working on complex technical problems.

Responsibilities

Post-sales, 2nd Line technical support on our client’s products.
Responding to requests for technical assistance from Customers.
Performing problem determination, identifying the best approach to finding a resolution such as software fixes, workarounds, or other creative approaches.
Collaboration with development teams to get fixes developed, built and delivered to the customer.
Installing and testing new products versions and fix packs.
Collaborating with 1st, 2nd and 3rd Line support teams and with field engineers onsite.
Provide technical help and mentoring to colleagues as capability allows.
Necessary Experience

Several years’ experience of COBOL and/or PL/1 programming languages
Strong knowledge of Windows and/or UNIX operating systems
Experience in IBM mainframe technology, e.g. CICS, IMS, DB2 and/or PL/1
Demonstrable experience of solving complex problems using a variety of techniques such as:
reproducing problems in a test environment
analysing traces and dumps and other diagnostics
producing a diagnosis of cause of error based on theory or probability, and proposing solutions where possible and appropriate
Advantageous:

Experience of programming languages such as JAVA, C or .NET in a Windows or Unix environment
Experience of resolving problems with relational databases and SQL in a Windows or Unix environment
Experience of resolving problems with inter systems communications and protocols such as TCP/IP or SNA
Any experience of team leadership in a support role
Fluency in a second European language