Assistant Pattern Maker Jobs in Virginia (NOW HIRING)

Job Summary:
IBM is a global leader in technology and consulting, and they are seeking a Mainframe Modernization SME with a Secret Clearance to lead technical delivery of modernization engagements. The role involves hands-on responsibilities in analyzing legacy systems, designing modern replacements, and implementing cloud-native solutions.
Responsibilities:
• Must currently play a leadership or decision maker role on one or more technical teams, evaluating technologies or design patterns and overseeing their implementation from concept to working product.
• Responsible for hands-on technical delivery of mainframe modernization engagements including legacy code analysis, cloud-native microservices architecture, database migration, batch processing migration, Kubernetes deployment, and CI/CD automation.
• Must be able to independently analyze legacy COBOL/JCL/VSAM systems, design and implement modern Java/Spring Boot replacements, build and manage relational database schemas, deploy to cloud Kubernetes environments, and troubleshoot end-to-end across the full modernization stack.
• Support marketing activities for related offerings.
• Assist with technical write-ups for proposal responses.
• Participate in weekly and monthly team meetings.
• Other similar professional duties may be assigned as needed.
• Support delivery of mainframe modernization engagements.
Qualifications:
Required:
• Must possess at time of hire and have the ability to maintain a Secret Clearance
• Provide methods, tools, techniques expertise related to mainframe modernization.
• Lead hands-on technical delivery of legacy mainframe-to-cloud migration projects including COBOL/JCL inventory analysis, cloud-native microservices development, relational database schema design, Kubernetes deployment, and CI/CD pipeline engineering.
• Ability to read, analyze, and decompose production COBOL programs, JCL jobs, VSAM datasets, copybooks (COPY/COPYLIB), and embedded SQL.
• Understand mainframe batch processing patterns including sequential file I/O (QSAM), KSDS/ESDS/RRDS VSAM operations, SORT/MERGE utilities, IDCAMS, IEBGENER, and conditional step execution via return codes and COND parameters.
• Map legacy data structures (PIC clauses, COMP-3 packed decimal, EBCDIC encoding, implied decimals, overpunch signs, binary COMP fields) to modern equivalents.
• Understand JCL PROC parameterization, GDG management, and JES job scheduling.
• Design and implement microservices using modern frameworks (Spring Boot, Spring Batch, or equivalent).
• Build batch processing jobs that replicate mainframe batch pipelines including chunk-oriented processing, database-driven paging readers, step-scoped components, and job parameterization.
• Implement ORM entity mappings with correct schema qualification, data type precision/scale for financial numeric types, and JSON column mappings.
• Build REST APIs for job triggering and operational status.
• Design and maintain relational schemas across multiple database schemas.
• Write and debug complex SQL including multi-table JOINs, window functions, aggregations, and conditional filtering.
• Manage database initialization scripts, ALTER TABLE migrations for running databases, and schema drift detection by comparing ORM entity definitions against actual database DDL dumps.
• Handle UUID primary keys, generated columns, partial indexes, sequence management, and schema-level isolation for batch vs. transactional data.
• Deploy containerized microservices to Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, GKE, or OpenShift).
• Build Helm charts with ConfigMaps, Secrets, Ingress, and service definitions.
• Configure managed relational database services, object storage, and container registries.
• Understand government cloud constraints including hardened base images, service account authentication, and restricted registry access.
• Troubleshoot pod failures, resource limits, and cross-service connectivity.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or equivalent) with multi-stage builds.
• Automate container image builds, database schema setup, multi-service builds (10+ services), and Helm deployments.
• Handle air-gapped and restricted environments requiring image mirroring and alternative build tooling (BuildKit, Kaniko).
• Translate mainframe batch job flows (JCL PROC chains with COND parameters, multi-step jobs) into modern batch processing pipelines with steps, tasklets, and chunk processing.
• Implement data converters for packed decimal (COMP-3), signed numeric (overpunch), implied decimal, and EBCDIC-to-ASCII translation.
• Build fixed-width file readers/writers that map COBOL copybook field layouts to modern data structures.
• Design staging table patterns for transaction processing pipelines.
• Replace mainframe utilities (IDCAMS, DFSORT, IEBGENER) with programmatic equivalents.
• Diagnose and fix runtime errors across the full modernization stack: SQL grammar errors from column/table mismatches, ORM entity mapping failures, data type truncation errors, missing column errors from schema drift, and ambiguous column references in JOINs.
• Compare production database DDL dumps against application code (entity definitions and native SQL queries) to identify and resolve discrepancies.
• Generate targeted database migrations for running systems without downtime.
• Decompose monolithic mainframe applications into bounded-context microservices.
• Design service boundaries based on mainframe program groupings and functional domains.
• Implement shared libraries with COBOL data converters, VSAM-equivalent database readers, mainframe utility replacements, and report writers that replicate mainframe print output (SYSPRINT/SYSOUT).
• Manage cross-service dependencies and shared schema access patterns.
• Experience with containerization (Docker/Podman), container orchestration (Kubernetes), object storage (S3/MinIO), message brokers (Kafka), caching (Redis), API gateways, monitoring and observability (Prometheus/Grafana), distributed tracing (Jaeger), workflow orchestration (Airflow), and identity management (Keycloak/OAuth2).
• Understand infrastructure-as-code for cloud-native deployments.
• Assist the Tech Lead coordinate tasks.
• Proficiency using AI coding assistants (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent) to accelerate mainframe modernization tasks including legacy code analysis, schema reconciliation, test generation, and bulk code migration.
• Ability to effectively direct AI tools for complex multi-file refactoring, cross-service debugging, and documentation generation.
Preferred:
• Experience with government mortgage-backed securities or similar federal financial systems (3+ years)
• Experience with IBM mainframe z/OS, TSO/ISPF, JES2/JES3 (3+ years)
• Knowledge of financial industry file formats and electronic payment processing (2+ years)
• Frontend development (React/TypeScript) for admin dashboards or terminal emulators (2+ years)
• Experience with API mocking frameworks for service virtualization during migration
• Knowledge of FedRAMP/FISMA compliance requirements for government cloud deployments
Company:
IBM provides technology and consulting, including software, infrastructure systems, and cloud-based solutions. Founded in 1911, the company is headquartered in Armonk, USA, with a team of 10001+ employees. The company is currently Late Stage.