Senior Middleware Operations Engineer (WebSphere Application Server)

Location: Lisbon, Portugal; hybrid work model. Candidates must have an existing legal right to work in the European Union.

Company

hirify.global provides technology services for a client in the financial services industry, supporting secure, reliable, and scalable middleware environments.

What you will do

• Ensure the stability, support, and operational excellence of WebSphere Application Server platforms in production.
• Handle incidents, runtime troubleshooting, resets, service recovery, and complex support cases.
• Support application server migrations, obsolescence management, patching, lifecycle activities, and standard change deployments.
• Automate operational tasks using Ansible, XL Deploy, XL Release, shell scripting, and Python.
• Optimize platform performance and runtime stability in high-availability environments.
• Create documentation and migration runbooks while contributing to continuous improvement.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience administering WebSphere Application Server and working in middleware operations.
• At least one completed migration from WebSphere ND/Base to Liberty.
• Experience with monitoring, incident management, troubleshooting, service restoration, and application server runtimes.
• Strong knowledge of Linux/Unix environments, JVM basics, and log analysis.
• Experience with XL Deploy, XL Release, or similar deployment and orchestration tools.
• Proficiency in shell scripting and Python for operational automation; communicative English required.

Nice to have

• Experience with obsolescence management and migration planning.
• Knowledge of COBOL ecosystems, TWS/workload automation, and technical debt remediation in financial environments.
• Certifications in middleware, automation, or cloud technologies.

Culture & Benefits

• Hybrid work based in Lisbon.
• Work in a critical, high-availability financial services environment.
• Autonomous ownership of complex operational cases with escalation of risks when needed.
• Opportunity to contribute to middleware modernization and the evolution toward Liberty.