Director, Mainframe Operations

We're building a relationship-oriented bank for the modern world. We need talented, passionate professionals who are dedicated to doing what's right for our clients.

At CIBC, we embrace your strengths and your ambitions, so you are empowered at work. Our team members have what they need to make a meaningful impact and are truly valued for who they are and what they contribute.

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What you'll be doing

As the Director, Mainframe Operations, you are a seasoned leader responsible for overseeing the planning, delivery, and optimization of enterprise mainframe and AS400 technologies and the applications they support. You will lead high-performing teams responsible for both infrastructure and application support, ensuring seamless delivery of critical business services. You will also build and manage effective relationships with vendors and service providers, ensuring their contributions align with CIBC's operational and strategic goals. You will apply leadership and technical expertise to manage stakeholder expectations, drive innovation, evaluate and implement new mainframe technologies while ensuring seamless integration with existing systems, policies, and procedures.

At CIBC we enable the work environment most optimal for you to thrive in your role. Details on your work arrangement (proportion of on-site and remote work) will be discussed at the time of your interview.

How you'll succeed

• Strategic Leadership –  You will help drive the vision, strategy, and execution for Mainframe Operations, lead, develop, and mentor a diverse team of up to 35 team members, fostering high performance and engagement while ensuring effective resource allocation and succession planning. You will provide strategic oversight for both mainframe and AS400 technologies, including the applications they support, ensuring reliable, secure, and high-performing business services. You will build strong relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including business leaders, IT partners, and vendors. You will communicate operational performance, risks, and strategic initiatives to executive leadership, and champion integration and modernization initiatives across mainframe and AS400 environments.

• Technical Expertise – You will leverage your solid technology expertise in IBM zSeries hardware and operating systems (z/OS, z/VM, z/VSE), including virtualization, partitioning, and workload management. You will be proficient in capacity planning, performance tuning, disaster recovery design, high availability architecture, and mainframe monitoring tools such as RMF, SMF, and OMEGAMON. You will have a strong grasp of mainframe security (RACF), regulatory compliance (PCI, SOX), and audit processes.

• Operational Excellence – You will oversee the delivery of reliable, secure, and efficient mainframe services. You will establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), ensuring service level agreements (SLAs) are consistently met. You will continuously improve operational processes to optimize performance and cost. You will leverage your experience with mainframe automation tools, scripting languages including REXX, CLIST, and JCL, and exposure to DevOps practices in support of integration with cloud environments and modernization initiatives. You will actively manage relationships with external vendors and service providers, ensuring service delivery meets CIBC's standards, negotiating contracts, monitoring vendor performance, and collaborating on technology upgrades and transformation initiatives.

• Risk Management and Compliance – You will ensure mainframe operations adhere to regulatory, risk, and compliance requirements while proactively identifying, assessing, and mitigating operational risks. You will leverage your ability to lead incident response and root cause analysis for major events, drive continuous improvement and innovation to enhance service delivery and cost efficiency to lead change management activities, ensuring team alignment and readiness for transformation. You will ensure problem analysis, resolution, and prevention, designing procedures and best practice techniques are documented to comply with technology standards; and lead disaster recovery planning exercises and maintain disaster recovery readiness.

Who you are

• You can demonstrate experience in leading Mainframe technology operating system or system software teams, or have system programmer, Application Operations, or Application Developer experience. You are familiar with mainframe environments, including key tools and technologies such as TSO/ISPF, SDSF, JCL, SMPE, z/OS security and systems programming, Parallel sysplex, Catalog management, z/OS hardware, LPAR, HMC, DB2, CICS, IMS, MQ, RACF administration, and performance and capacity management tools. Experience with mainframe security solutions (such as Vanguard) and middleware is preferred. You have prior experience of leading diverse teams, during which you have effectively managed direct reports with varied backgrounds, skill sets, and perspectives. Your leadership has fostered an inclusive environment, promoted collaboration, and leveraged individual strengths to achieve organizational objectives.

• You're a certified professional with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field (preferred). You possess a strong technical foundation in mainframe operations, with demonstrated expertise in z/OS and related product software. You have experience leading incident, change, and problem management processes, as well as overseeing complex technical projects. Professional certifications such as ITIL, SRE, and Financial Management are considered assets, and advanced mainframe credentials (such as IBM Badges) are preferred.

• You put our clients first. You are Stress resistant in case of Major Incident and emergency situations. You have the self driven initiative to deal with multi-task issues. You have a methodical and disciplined approach to work. You have excellent analytical skills and problem-solving capabilities.

• You are a bold and accountable leader. You have experience developing and implementing strategic team goals. You have experience coaching employees and driving successful team performance.

• Your influence makes an impact. You know that relationships and networks are essential to success. You inspire outcomes by making yourself heard.

• You embrace and champion change. You'll continuously evolve your thinking and the way you work in order to deliver your best.

• Values matter to you. You bring your real self to work, and you live our values – trust, teamwork, and accountability.

What CIBC Offers

At CIBC, your goals are a priority. We start with your strengths and ambitions as an employee and strive to create opportunities to tap into your potential. We aspire to give you a career, rather than just a paycheck.

• We work to recognize you in meaningful, personalized ways including a competitive salary, incentive pay, banking benefits, a benefits program*, defined benefit pension plan*, an employee share purchase plan, a vacation offering, wellbeing support, and MomentMakers, our social, points-based recognition program.

• Our spaces and technological toolkit will make it simple to bring together great minds to create innovative solutions that make a difference for our clients.

• We cultivate a culture where you can express your ambition through initiatives like Purpose Day; a paid day off dedicated for you to use to invest in your growth and development.

*Subject to plan and program terms and conditions

What you need to know

• CIBC is committed to creating an inclusive environment where all team members and clients feel like they belong. We seek applicants with a wide range of abilities and we provide an accessible candidate experience. If you need accommodation, please contact Mailbox.careers-

• You need to be legally eligible to work at the location(s) specified above and, where applicable, must have a valid work or study permit.

• We may ask you to complete an attribute-based assessment and other skills tests (such as simulation, coding, French proficiency, MS Office). Our goal for the application process is to get to know more about you, all that you have to offer, and give you the opportunity to learn more about us.

Job Location

Toronto-81 Bay, 18th Floor

Employment Type

Regular

Weekly Hours

37.5

Skills

Application Operations, Budget Management, Enterprise Technologies, IBM Db2, IBM IMS, IBM System I (AS/400), IBM z/OS, Information Technology (IT) Systems, Infrastructure Management (IM), Leadership, Long Term Planning, Mitigated Risks, People Management, Regulatory Controls

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