Corporate Vice President, Mainframe Platform Product Lead

Location Designation: Hybrid - 3 days per quarter
Our New York Life culture has laid the foundation for over 180 years of commitment to our employees, agents, policy owners, and the communities where we live and work. Here you become a valued part of a welcoming, inclusive, and caring organization with a long-standing legacy in stability and growth. The strength revolves around our diversified, multi-dimensional business portfolio that goes beyond life insurance.
As a Fortune 100 company and industry leader, we provide an environment where you can explore your career ambitions, offering opportunities to tackle meaningful challenges and stretch your skills while balancing work and life priorities. You will be part of an inclusive team guided by our belief to always be there for each other-providing the support and flexibility to grow and reach new heights while making an impact in the lives of others.
You are our future, and we commit to investing in you accordingly.
As part of Technology, you'll have the opportunity to contribute to groundbreaking initiatives that shape New York Life's digital landscape. Leverage cutting-edge technologies like Generative AI to increase productivity, streamline processes, and create seamless experiences for clients, agents, and employees. Your expertise fuels innovation, agility, and growth - driving the company's success.
Role Summary:
A highly experienced and strategic Technical leader to lead the Mainframe Platform and Services team. This critical role is responsible for the overall health, performance, security, modernization, and evolution of our mainframe infrastructure and the services it provides. The ideal candidate will possess a deep technical understanding of mainframe technologies, strong leadership and management skills, and a proven ability to drive strategic initiatives and foster innovation within the mainframe environment.
What you'll do:
Leadership and Management

• Lead, mentor, and manage a team of highly skilled mainframe engineers, system programmers, and administrators.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing within the team.
• Conduct performance reviews, set goals, and support the professional growth and development of team members.

Service Delivery & Operations

• Ensure the reliable and efficient operation of all mainframe services, including batch processing, online transactions, and data management.
• Oversee incident management, problem resolution, and root cause analysis for mainframe-related issues.
• Implement and optimize monitoring, alerting, and reporting mechanisms to proactively identify and address potential problems.
• Manage capacity planning and performance tuning activities to ensure the mainframe platform meets current and future business demands.
• Collaborate with application development teams, operations, and other IT groups to ensure seamless service delivery and support.
• Oversee the implementation of robust security measures and ensure compliance with all relevant regulations and internal policies.

Mainframe Modernization

• Drive modernization efforts, including decomposing monolithic applications and migrating selected components from the mainframe to cloud-native architectures.
• Lead and manage initiatives to refactor or rewrite legacy assembler and PL/I codebases into modern programming languages, improving maintainability and integration capabilities.
• Partner with enterprise architecture, cloud, and application teams to define a roadmap for incremental mainframe workload offloading and transformation.

Financial Management

• Develop and manage the budget for the mainframe platform and services, optimizing resource allocation and cost control.
• Identify opportunities for cost savings and efficiency improvements within the mainframe environment.

Innovation & Best Practices

• Stay abreast of industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in mainframe platform management and modernization.
• Evaluate and recommend new tools, service providers, practices, technologies, and methodologies to enhance the mainframe environment.
• Champion modernization initiatives to make heritage applications supportable and maintainable with standard industry skill sets.
• Streamline operational processes to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

What you'll bring:
Experience

• 10-15+ years of progressive experience in mainframe infrastructure management, system programming, or related roles.
• 5+ years of proven experience in a technical management or leadership role.
• Extensive experience in largescale, complex mainframe environments.
• Demonstrated success leading mainframe modernization efforts, including:

• Refactoring or migrating assembler and PL/I workloads to modern languages.
• Decomposing applications and transitioning components to cloudbased services.

• Strong understanding of ITIL, service management, and DevOps practices in mainframe environments.

Technical Proficiency

• Operating Systems: IBM z/OS (deep expertise).
• System Software: JES2/JES3, SMS, DFSMS, RACF/ACF2/Top Secret.
• Storage: DS89K Disk Frames, TS77K Virtual Tape, Brocade Switches.
• Databases: DB2, IMS DB/DC, IDMS.
• File Systems: VSAM, QSAM, GDS, PDS/PDSE.
• Middleware: CICS, MQ, IDMS.
• Utilities: SMP/E, JCL, REXX, Assembler.
• Performance Monitoring: OMEGAMON, RMF, SMF, SAS.
• Automation: SA/390, NetView, ESP, Stonebranch.
• Disaster Recovery: z/OS Global Mirror.
• Networking: TCP/IP on z/OS; SNA.
• Modern Mainframe Technologies: ZOUE (Zowe), z/OS Connect, Mainframe APIs, CI/CD pipelines, GitHub integration.

Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field. Relevant industry certifications (e.g., ITIL, IBM Z) are highly desirable.
Pay Transparency
Salary Range: $180,000-$258,000
Overtime eligible: Exempt
Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes
Sales bonus eligible: No
Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual's experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.
Our Benefits
We provide a full package of benefits for employees - and have unique offerings for a modern workforce, including leave programs, adoption assistance, and student loan repayment programs. Based on feedback from our employees, we continue to refine and add benefits to our offering, so that you can flourish both inside and outside of work.Click hereto discover more about our comprehensive benefit options or visit our NYL Benefits Site.
Our Commitment to Inclusion
At New York Life, fostering an inclusive workplace is fundamental to who we are and how we serve our communities. We have a longstanding commitment to creating an environment where individuals can contribute their best and succeed together. This foundation is rooted in our core values of humanity and integrity, ensuring that every employee feels valued and supported. By embracing a broad range of perspectives and experiences, we achieve greater success and fulfill our promise of providing financial security and peace of mind to families across all communities. Click here to learn more about New York Life's leadership in this space.
Recognized as one of Fortune's World's Most Admired Companies, New York Life is committed to improving local communities through a culture of employee giving and volunteerism, supported by the Foundation. We're proud that due to our mutuality, we operate in the best interests of our policy owners. To learn more about career opportunities at New York Life, please visit the Careers page of www.NewYorkLife.com.
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Job Requisition ID: 92157