Middleware Engineer – Banking Client (Hybrid, Johannesburg)

About the role

We are looking for experienced Middleware Engineers to join Watershed Consulting’s team supporting a major banking client in Johannesburg. The role is hybrid, requiring at least three days per week on‑site, and is available as either permanent or contract employment.

Key responsibilities

• Provide production support and day‑to‑day administration of middleware components such as Connect:Direct, Sterling File Gateway, IBM MQ and Sterling B2B Integrator.
• Monitor and manage secure file transfer protocols (SFTP, FTPS, AS2) and handle certificate lifecycle management.
• Troubleshoot incidents, perform root‑cause analysis and implement preventive fixes.
• Support High Availability and Disaster Recovery design, conduct failover validation and recovery procedures.
• Collaborate with application, infrastructure, security and network teams to deliver integrated solutions.
• Implement automation for deployment and configuration using Ansible and Terraform.
• Maintain and operate MFT services and scheduling tools (Control‑M) to meet SLA requirements.
• Contribute to operational runbooks, change requests and post‑incident reviews.

Required profile

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, IT or equivalent experience.
• Proven experience in middleware administration and production support within banking or financial services.
• Strong understanding of secure file transfer protocols and certificate management.
• Experience with HA/DR architectures for mission‑critical systems.
• Ability to work in an on‑call rotation and handle incident management.

Required skills

• IBM Connect:Direct (Connect Direct)
• Sterling File Gateway (SFG)
• IBM MQ
• IBM Sterling B2B Integrator
• Secure file transfer protocols: SFTP, FTPS, AS2
• Certificate lifecycle management
• Ansible
• Terraform
• Control‑M scheduler
• HA/DR design and validation