Middleware Engineer (F5 Development & Support)

Role: Middleware Engineer (F5 Development & Support)
Overview
We are seeking a skilled Middleware Engineer with strong hands-on experience in F5 (BIG-IP) technologies to support, maintain, and enhance enterprise middleware infrastructure. The role involves a balance of development, operations support, troubleshooting, and automation in a production environment.

At Zensar, we're "experience-led everything". We are committed to conceptualizing, designing, engineering, marketing, and managing digital solutions and experiences for over 130 leading enterprises. We are a company driven by a bold purpose: Together, we shape experiences for better futures. Whether for our clients, our people, or the world around us, this belief powers everything we do. At the heart of our culture is ONE with Client - a set of four core values that reflect who we are and how we work: One Zensar, Nurturing, Empowering, and Client Focus.

Part of the $4.8 billion RPG Group, we're a community of 10,000+ innovators across 30+ global locations, including Milpitas, Seattle, Princeton, Cape Town, London, Zurich, Singapore, and Mexico City. Explore Life at Zensar and join us to Grow. Own. Achieve. Learn. to be the best version of yourself.

We believe the best work happens when individuality is celebrated, growth is encouraged, and well-being is prioritized. We are an equal employment opportunity (EEO) and affirmative action employer, committed to creating an inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, creed, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, citizenship, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, marital status, family medical leave status, or protected veteran status.

Key Responsibilities

Messaging Platform Management

• Administer and support:
  • IBM MQ (Queue Managers, Channels, Queues)
  • Apache Kafka (Topics, Brokers, Partitions, Clusters)
• Configure and manage message routing, transformation, and integration flows
• Handle queue/topic setup, retention policies, and message persistence

Development & Integration

• Develop and maintain message producers/consumers using MQ and Kafka
• Build integration solutions using:
  • Java / Spring Boot / Kafka Streams / MQ APIs
• Implement event-driven and asynchronous architectures
• Design and manage data streaming pipelines

Production Support

• Provide L2/L3 support for messaging platforms and integrations
• Monitor queue depth, lag, consumer health, and throughput
• Perform incident management, RCA, and problem resolution
• Ensure high availability, failover, and disaster recovery readiness

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Performance & Optimization

• Optimize:
  • Message throughput and latency
  • Kafka partitioning and consumer groups
  • MQ queue performance and channel configurations
• Conduct capacity planning and scaling strategies

Automation & DevOps

• Build automation scripts using:
  • Shell / Python / Ansible
• Integrate messaging platforms with:
  • CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, Jenkins)
• Support infrastructure automation and configuration management

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Security & Compliance

• Manage:
  • MQ security (SSL/TLS, authentication, authorization)
  • Kafka security (SASL, ACLs, encryption)
• Ensure compliance with enterprise security standards

Collaboration

• Work with:
  • Application teams, DevOps, and infrastructure teams
• Support application onboarding onto MQ/Kafka platforms

Participate in release management and deployments

Required Skills & Experience

Core Technical Skills

• Strong experience in:
  • F5 BIG-IP (LTM mandatory, GTM/DNS, ASM preferred)
  • Load balancing & networking concepts (TCP/IP, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS)
• Experience writing:
  • iRules / TCL scripting
• Good understanding of:
  • Web/application architectures and middleware ecosystems

Development & DevOps

• Scripting knowledge:
  • Python / Shell / Bash
• Exposure to:
  • CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, etc.)
  • Automation tools (Ansible, Terraform - preferred)

Support Experience

Experience in:

• Production support & incident management
• Monitoring tools (e.g., Dynatrace, Splunk, AppDynamics)

Cloud & Modern Platforms (Good to Have)

• Exposure to:
  • Azure / AWS networking
  • Container platforms (Kubernetes) and ingress controllers

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Soft Skills

• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills
• Proactive and operational mindset for production environments
• Effective stakeholder communication
• Ability to work in 24x7 support model (if required)

Experience

• 10+ years in Middleware / Network / Application Delivery roles
• Relevant F5 Certifications (e.g., F5-CA, F5-CTS) - preferred

Key Responsibilities

Middleware & F5 Management

• Configure, manage, and support F5 BIG-IP (LTM, GTM/DNS, ASM, APM) components.
• Perform load balancing configuration, traffic routing (L4/L7), SSL offloading, and persistence setup.
• Design and implement iRules / iApps for customized traffic management solutions.

Production Support

• Provide L2/L3 support for middleware and F5-related incidents.
• Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and implement permanent fixes.
• Ensure high availability, failover, and disaster recovery readiness.

Development & Automation

• Develop and maintain automation scripts using Python, Shell scripting, or Ansible.
• Implement infrastructure-as-code (IaC) practices where applicable.
• Enhance monitoring and alerting capabilities for proactive issue resolution.

Performance Optimization

• Monitor system performance and optimize application delivery and network latency.
• Troubleshoot performance bottlenecks and optimize load balancing strategies.

Security & Compliance

• Configure and manage WAF policies (F5 ASM).
• Handle SSL certificates lifecycle management.
• Ensure compliance with enterprise security standards.

Collaboration

• Work closely with application teams, network teams, and DevOps teams.
• Participate in release deployments and change management processes.
• Support onboarding of new applications to F5 platform.