Mainframe Application Support Subject Matter Expert

Join a team of diverse professionals at Farmers to acquire skills on the job and apply your learned knowledge to future roles at Farmers. Farmers Insurance also offers extensive training opportunities through the award winning University of Farmers named by Training magazine amongst top 10 corporate training units in the world. Start your career at Farmers today!

Provides expertise in the design and functionality of business applications; Understands customers’ business processes and products and how best they can be supported by the application systems; Reviews and validates the detailed technical design for business applications provided by the supplier to ensure alignment with business requirements; Performs quality review checks on project deliverables; Validates suppliers estimates; Performs impact analysis of application changes across various components, holding an end-to-end view of the system; Estimates Rough Order of Magnitude for the level of effort/cost of new application functionality; Specifies / recommends integration and parallel testing criteria; Supports the implementation activities, troubleshooting system environmental issues, as required.

• Work under the direction of IT Program Manager and master all mainframe production batch applications for Business Insurance.
• Ensure Critical Success Factor (CSF), Service Level Agreements (SLA) and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are met for all batch applications.
• Present Metrics / Trends / Dashboards & SLAs to Farmers management.
• Communicate delays/issues to other partnering applications, business, vendors and Farmers management.
• Work with stakeholders from other support groups, development teams, infrastructure teams and business contacts for production issues
• Communicate the relevant details on production issues, perform and provide root cause, proposed resolution and clean up status to all stakeholders.
• Independently work or work with a team on assigned projects and enhancements. Develop applicable documentation such as project plans, implementation plans, and impact analysis.Present Metrics / Trends/ Dashboards with defined metrics & SLAs
• Provide testing recommendations for functional & regression testing for the assigned projects, assignments and during handover/consultation meetings.
• Analyze and make recommendations for the need of system backup, security, balancing & controls.
• Support ITIL processes and makes sure to enforce and abide by them (Change, Incident, Problem)
• Review pre & post production validation results to make sure that the changes migrated are working as expected.
• Coordinate and support ticket intake, timely execution and closure.
• Create tickets for Development/Agile teams for permanent/code fixes.
• Troubleshoot production defects, perform root cause analysis and provide guidance to team on the resolution. Communicates the relevant details to business and takes issue ownership.
• Conduct system studies, analyze existing automated and manual processes to improve efficiency; research and develop techniques for automation.
• Participate in Incident and Problem management calls.
• Participate in Disaster Recovery exercise as needed
• Coordinate and participates in Audits.
• Will be required to work on-call as needed to support scheduled activities and production Incidents.

• 5+ years’ experience in Production Support or Development environment supporting mainframe technologies such as COBOL, CICS, JCL, DB2, EASYTRIEVE, VSAM, and Fileaid. Knowledge of Ratabase, REXX and Assembler language is a big plus.
• 3+ years’ experience on mainframe batch monitoring, abend resolution, different file formats and storage.
• 2+ years’ experience working knowledge of HP Quality Center, SharePoint, MS Office Suite and ServiceNow.
• 2+ years’ experience coordinating offshore team work assignments.
• IT experience in policy administration application for Property & Casualty Insurance is preferred.

• Good working knowledge on policy premium calculation or rating concepts is desirable.
• Must have the ability to apply quantitative data analysis techniques to improve processes, and ability to interpret data in a business framework (trends, opportunities, action items), present data, and provide analyses and insights to Farmers management.
• Experienced in creating audit reports is highly desirable.
• Must have excellent time management skills to handle multiple assignments and competing priorities.
• Exposure to Agile methodologies, testing, automation & continuous integration is highly desirable.
• Must have strong analytical, verbal and written communication skills.
• Must have the ability to explain complex concepts/issues in simple terms.