Responsibilities:
• Lead the deployment, configuration, upkeep, and optimization of enterprise middleware platforms, including MS IIS, IBM WebSphere, IBM MQ, Tomcat, and Apache.
• Ensure operational health, performance, and availability of middleware instances, runtime environments, and hosted applications.
• Perform middleware performance tuning, including JVM optimization, thread/heap tuning, connection pool tuning, and MQ channel tuning.
• Oversee middleware version upgrades, patching cycles, vulnerability remediation, and platform lifecycle management.
• Ensure compliance with security policies, including TLS enablement, hardened configurations, and access control enforcement.
• Troubleshoot middleware outages, performance degradations, application routing issues, and integration failures.
• Manage integration with load balancers; collaborate with Network Security and Network Data teams on WAF, DNS, certificates, and application routing infrastructure.
• Maintain detailed documentation of middleware architectures, topologies, configuration baselines, and operational procedures.
• Collaborate with application development teams on deployment patterns, middleware integration, and performance optimization.
• Lead middleware capacity and utilization reviews, and plan for scaling and optimization initiatives.
• Support governance, reporting, and service review meetings for middleware services.
• Ensure audit readiness through proper configuration, logging, access reviews, and control enforcement.
• Drive improvements in middleware deployment automation, configuration management, and standardization.
• Manage vendor relationships and coordinate support cases and escalations.
• Mentor and guide L2 Middleware Analysts; contribute to the operational knowledge base and organize on-call rotations.
• Support application onboarding, integration testing, environment preparation, and pre-production readiness.
• Support business continuity planning and disaster recovery (DR) tests for middleware platforms.
• Ensure secure disposal and decommissioning of middleware assets and outdated components.

Requirements:
• Middleware Administration: Expert in MS IIS, IBM WebSphere, IBM MQ, Tomcat, and Apache, including configuration, patching, and lifecycle management.
• Performance Tuning: Strong skills in JVM settings, thread pools, garbage collection, connection pools, and MQ channel/queue tuning.
• Integration & Networking: Experience integrating middleware with load balancers (NetScaler/F5), WAF, DNS, and application routing infrastructure.
• Security & Compliance: Deep understanding of TLS, cipher suites, certificate binding, PKI, secure endpoints, authentication mechanisms, and access control.
• Observability & Monitoring: Skilled in middleware logging, metrics, alerts, tracing, and performance monitoring.
• Messaging & Integration Patterns: Knowledge of IBM MQ, JMS, and enterprise integration services.
• Migration & Modernisation: Experience with middleware migration, consolidation, containerization, and cloud-based deployments (WebSphere Liberty, Tomcat on Kubernetes).
• Troubleshooting & Collaboration: Ability to diagnose complex runtime/application issues and collaborate effectively with development teams.
• Automation & Scripting: Proficient in PowerShell, Bash, Python, and Ansible for deployment automation and operational efficiency.
• Vendor & Compliance Management: Experience with license management, vendor engagement, and audit readiness.
• Leadership & Mentoring: Strong people management and mentoring skills for L2 Middleware Analysts.