Senior Software Engineer - Mainframe

Overview

Responsible at the expert level for mainframe software engineering, technical solution delivery, and technical requirements definition. Serves as an individual-contributor technical lead for critical mainframe applications and platforms.

Primary Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership & Engineering Delivery

• Lead technical design, development, enhancement, and support of mainframe applications while ensuring SDLC governance.
• Own technical decisions and delivery quality for assigned platforms, workstreams, or application domains.
• Partner with business and technology stakeholders to align delivery with priorities, requirements, risk controls, and enterprise standards.

Software Engineering Excellence

• Deliver secure, efficient, maintainable, and resilient code using enterprise mainframe technologies.
• Lead mainframe design, troubleshooting, performance tuning, and support across batch and online processing.
• Establish coding standards, development practices, and quality expectations for maintainability, performance, security, and resiliency.

SDLC, DevOps & Quality Engineering

• Review and approve solution designs, pull requests, code changes, peer reviews, source control practices, and deployment readiness.
• Define test strategy for mainframe changes, including batch validation, regression testing, data reconciliation, performance checks, and implementation verification.
• Promote CI/CD, functional automation, standardization, and DevOps practices to improve productivity and reduce manual effort.

Technical Requirements & Solution Design

• Ensure requirements, solution designs, and implementation plans are complete, feasible, scalable, secure, and aligned with business and technical standards.
• Guide architecture, integration patterns, modernization, engineering processes, and technical decision-making across mainframe and connected platforms.
• Translate complex mainframe constraints into business, delivery, risk, and operational impacts while resolving technical blockers.

Operational Excellence & Modernization

• Drive mainframe modernization, including API enablement, data integration, DevOps adoption, technical debt reduction, and incremental refactoring.
• Own technical health by improving resiliency, reducing defects, addressing technical debt, and guiding remediation plans.
• Ensure production readiness for batch schedules, online transactions, restart/recovery, monitoring, support documentation, and reliability improvements.
• Apply AI-assisted engineering and automation responsibly across SDLC and operational processes where appropriate.

Communication & Collaboration

• Communicate architecture, technical decisions, progress, risks, and challenges clearly to technical and business stakeholders.
• Influence technical decisions across teams without direct authority and present solutions in architecture reviews, forums, and knowledge-sharing sessions.
• Maintain documentation and partner across business, product, architecture, infrastructure, security, operations, risk, and audit teams.
• Ensure technical changes comply with company risk, regulatory, policy, change management, security, data protection, access control, and operational risk standards.
• Escalate risk-related issues as needed and address audit and regulatory items on time.
• Support a culture of belonging, reflect the M&T Bank brand, maintain internal controls, and complete other assigned duties.

Scope of Responsibilities

• Serve as an individual-contributor technical lead accountable for technical direction, design quality, code review, modernization guidance, and production stability; this role does not include direct people management.
• Own technical outcomes for assigned mainframe applications, platforms, workstreams, or domains, including solution design, delivery quality, operational readiness, and risk remediation.
• Influence engineers, architects, product, operations, security, infrastructure, risk, and audit partners through technical expertise, documentation, standards, and collaboration.

Education & Experience Required:

• Associate's degree and a minimum of 5 years' systems analysis and/ or application development work experience or Bachelor's degree and a minimum of 3 years' systems analysis and/ or application development work experience. In lieu of degree, a combined minimum of 7 years' education and/or relevant work experience, including a minimum of 3 years' systems analysis and/or application development work experience

Required Technical Skills

• IBM z/OS, COBOL, CICS, JCL, VSAM, DB2 for z/OS, TSO/ISPF, SDSF, and Easytrieve+.
• GitLab for source control, change management, and CI/CD pipeline management.
• Mainframe debugging and analysis tools such as File-AID, Abend-AID, Xpediter, InterTest, or equivalent.
• Batch scheduling and enterprise integration experience with CA7, Control-M, MQ, or equivalent.

Required Leadership & Delivery Experience

• Expert analytical skills specific to software engineering and application development.
• Experience leading technical initiatives, project deliverables, or engineering workstreams as an individual-contributor technical lead.
• Experience reviewing solution designs, technical requirements, code changes, and implementation approaches.
• Strong understanding of SDLC, testing, deployment, resiliency, security, and change management practices.

Education & Experience Preferred:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a minimum of 5 years of systems analysis and/or application development experience.

Preferred Technical Skills

• Experience supporting mainframe modernization through z/OS Connect, ZDIH, API enablement, event/data integration, technical debt reduction, and platform resiliency.
• Experience with mainframe DevOps, release readiness, automation testing, and AI-assisted engineering tools where appropriate.

Preferred Delivery & Collaboration Experience

• Experience improving production stability, defect reduction, and engineering productivity.
• Experience influencing technical decisions and presenting to stakeholders across technology and business departments.
• Experience working within Agile delivery frameworks.

M&T Bank is committed to fair, competitive, and market-informed pay for our employees. The pay range for this position is $97,100.00 - $161,800.00 Annual (USD). The successful candidate's particular combination of knowledge, skills, and experience will inform their specific compensation.

Location

Buffalo, New York, United States of America