EY - GDS Consulting - AIA - Mainframe - Manager

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The opportunity   We are seeking an experienced Manager – Mainframe Modernization to lead our AI-Driven Legacy Transformation practice. The ideal candidate will bring deep expertise across mainframe ecosystems, AI/ML-driven modernization strategies, and cloud technologies, combined with strong leadership, stakeholder management, and team-building capabilities to deliver large-scale digital transformation programmes.   You will own the end-to-end modernization strategy, drive cross-functional collaboration with C-suite leaders, business stakeholders, and architecture teams, and lead a team of engineers and specialists to successfully migrate mission-critical mainframe workloads to modern, scalable, cloud-native platforms using AI-powered automation frameworks.     Your key responsibilities   Technical Excellence:

Strategic Leadership and Stakeholder Management

Define and own the mainframe modernization strategy aligned with business objectives and enterprise technology roadmaps. Collaborate with senior stakeholders, business leaders, and architecture teams to prioritise modernization initiatives and secure executive buy-in. Evaluate and recommend modernization paths — rehosting, refactoring, rebuilding, or replacing — based on cost-benefit analysis, risk assessment, and business impact.

Mainframe Systems Assessment and Governance

Oversee comprehensive assessments of mainframe applications (COBOL, JCL, VSAM, DB2, CICS, IMS, Assembler) to identify modernization opportunities, risks, and dependencies. Establish governance frameworks, quality gates, and standards for modernization delivery across the portfolio. Drive technical debt identification, quantification, and systematic reduction across the legacy estate.

AI-Driven Modernization and Automation

Champion the adoption of AI tools, LLMs, and custom AI agentic workflows for automated code analysis, refactoring, and code translation at scale. Define and operationalise AI pipelines, prompt engineering standards, and context engineering best practices to maximise modernization throughput and accuracy. Evaluate emerging AI/ML technologies and integrate them into the modernization toolchain to maintain competitive advantage.

Team Leadership and Capability Building

Lead, mentor, and grow a team of mainframe modernization engineers, developers, and analysts. Build team capabilities in AI-driven modernization, cloud-native development, and DevOps practices. Conduct architecture reviews, code reviews, and provide technical guidance to ensure delivery excellence.

Target-State Architecture – APIs and Microservices

Architect and oversee the design of target-state systems, including API integrations, microservices, and event-driven architectures. Ensure modernized solutions are scalable, resilient, and aligned with enterprise architecture standards.

Cloud and Platform Integration

Lead the migration of mainframe workloads to cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) using AI-driven and automated solutions. Ensure seamless integration of legacy systems with cloud-native services, containerised deployments (Docker, Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelines. Drive adoption of infrastructure-as-code, observability, and security best practices for modernized workloads.

Reporting, Documentation, and Business Impact

Create and present executive-level reporting on modernization progress, business impact, risks, and ROI. Maintain comprehensive technical documentation including system designs, AI pipeline architectures, and modernization roadmaps. Track and communicate KPIs related to