Lead Engineer – IBM MQ Salary: Open + Bonus Location: Chicago, IL or Dallas, TX Hybrid: 3 days onsite, 2 days remote Qualifications: Bachelor's degree. 10+ years of hands-on experience administering IBM MQ in a complex enterprise environment. Strong understanding of core IBM MQ concepts (Queue Managers, Queues, Channels, Clustering, Publish/Subscribe, Security). Proficiency in administering IBM MQ on [Specify primary OS, e.g., Linux, Windows]. Proven troubleshooting skills in diagnosing and resolving complex MQ issues. Experience with scripting languages (e.g., Bash, Python, Perl) for automation. Understanding of networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, load balancers) as they relate to MQ. Hands-on experience with containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift) and managing MQ in containers. Experience with infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools like Ansible or Terraform. Responsibilities: Install, configure, and maintain IBM MQ software (Queue Managers, Clients) on RHEL. Perform version upgrades, apply fix packs, and manage patching cycles according to best practices and security requirements. Configure MQ objects, including Queue Managers, Queues (Local, Remote, Alias, Model), Channels, Listeners, Clusters, Topics, and Subscriptions. Monitor MQ system performance metrics, message throughput, and latency. Identify performance bottlenecks and implement tuning adjustments at the Queue Manager, channel, and queue levels. Analyze MQ logs and trace data to optimize configurations. Provide expert-level troubleshooting for MQ-related issues, including connectivity problems, message delivery failures, security errors, and performance degradation. Act as a primary point of contact for application teams regarding MQ connectivity and messaging issues. Respond to incidents, diagnose root causes, and implement corrective actions, participating in on-call rotation if applicable. Monitor resource utilization (CPU, memory, disk space, message depths) and forecast future capacity needs. Design and implement scalable MQ solutions, including clustering and distributed queuing, to meet growing business demands. Develop, implement, test, and maintain disaster recovery (DR) procedures for the MQ environment.