Senior Middleware Engineer

MQ & WAS Senior Middleware Engineer
6 month contract with likely extension
Inside IR35 via Umbrella
Remote based

Join a major transformation initiative modernising critical infrastructure across a large, well‑established technology portfolio. We're looking for an experienced MQ & WAS Senior Middleware Engineer to support a long‑term migration programme moving legacy SLES and Oracle Linux environments onto Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) on GCVE.

This is a key engineering role within a 60‑person delivery portfolio, working across 30+ projects and collaborating closely with architects, platform teams and application support teams.

You'll be joining a strategic programme addressing operational risk by migrating approximately 27% of the organisation's Unix server estate to RHEL. The initiative follows an incremental, agile PI‑planning delivery model and runs alongside BAU upgrade work streams.

You’ll play a central role in platform engineering, application deployment, performance tuning and automation to support successful delivery of this multi‑year migration.

• Install & Configure Middleware: IBM WAS (ND/Liberty), IBM HTTP Server, Web Sphere Portal, MQ upgrades, and OS migration to RHEL.
• Deploy & Support Applications: Deploy enterprise applications (EAR/WAR), configure JDBC providers and JMS queues.
• Troubleshooting: Provide expert diagnostic support and root‑cause analysis across complex distributed environments.
• Performance & Monitoring: Use tools such as App Dynamics, Wily Introscope or Tivoli to monitor JVMs, tune performance, manage capacity and ensure stability.
• Security Management: Implement SSL/TLS, manage certificates, authentication and authorisation (including OAM).
• Automation: Build scripts in Python, Bash, Perl, Jython or Ansible for deployment, configuration and operational automation.
• Collaboration: Work closely with cross‑functional teams to ensure seamless migration, share technical guidance and contribute to best‑practice engineering.

• Deep knowledge of IBM Web Sphere Application Server (ND & Liberty), IHS, and plug‑in configuration.
• Proficiency with Linux/UNIX platforms (SLES, Oracle Linux, RHEL) and Windows.
• Scripting experience - Bash, Python, Perl, Power Shell, Jython.
• Familiarity with CI/CD tooling (Jenkins, Git Lab) and monitoring tools.
• Solid understanding of networking fundamentals - TCP/IP, DNS, firewalls, load balancing.
• Knowledge of related technologies such as IBM ACE, Kafka or Rabbit
  
  MQ.
• Experience with Dev Ops/SRE practices, ITIL processes, and Jira.

If this role is of interest to you, and you have the appropriate skillset and experience, please apply now with an updated CV!