Senior MQ Administrator

Requisition Details & Talent Acquisition Specialist

REQ 142345 - Keabetswe Modise
Closing Date: 09 March 2025

Job Family

Career Stream

IT Technical/Specialists

Leadership Pipeline

Job Purpose

A Senior MQ (Message Queue) Administrator plays a critical role in managing, maintaining, and optimising enterprise messaging platforms such as IBM MQ or similar middleware solutions. These professionals ensure reliable, secure, and scalable message-based communication between distributed applications and services, which is essential for modern business operations.

Job Responsibilities

• System Architecture & Design:
• • Lead the design and implementation of MQ infrastructure to meet performance, scalability, and security requirements.
• Installation & Configuration:
• • Oversee installation, configuration, and upgrades of MQ servers, clusters, and clients across development, test, and production environments.
• Monitoring & Performance Tuning:
• • Monitor MQ systems for performance, availability, and reliability.
  • Conduct health checks, analyse logs, and tune system configurations for efficient message delivery.
• Security Management:
• • Implement security policies and manage access controls.
  • Ensure compliance with organisational and regulatory standards.
• Troubleshooting & Incident Response:
• • Diagnose and resolve complex MQ issues including message delivery failures, queue challenges, and outages.
  • Provide expert support during high-severity incidents.
• Disaster Recovery & Backup:
• • Develop and maintain disaster recovery strategies, backup procedures, and failover mechanisms.
• Documentation & Knowledge Sharing:
• • Create and maintain technical documentation.
  • Train and mentor junior administrators and provide support to broader teams.
• Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement:
• • Work with developers, infrastructure teams, and business stakeholders to ensure messaging solutions meet business needs.
• Change & Release Management:
• • Manage MQ configuration changes while ensuring minimal disruption and adherence to change control processes.
• MQ Infrastructure Management:
• • Maintain and support MQ servers, queues, channels, and related components.
  • Proactively address system health issues.
• Capacity Planning:
• • Analyse usage trends and recommend upgrades or architectural adjustments.
• Automation & Scripting:
• • Develop scripts and automation tools to streamline monitoring, reporting, and configuration tasks.
• Compliance & Audit Support:
• • Ensure MQ environments meet internal/external compliance requirements.
  • Provide evidence and documentation during audits.
• Vendor Liaison:
• • Engage with MQ vendors for support, updates, and technical insight.

Essential Qualifications - NQF Level

Required Skills and Competencies

• Strong knowledge of MQ technologies (IBM MQ, RabbitMQ, Apache ActiveMQ).
• Excellent troubleshooting and problem‑solving skills.
• Experience with Linux/UNIX and Windows environments.
• Proficiency in scripting (Bash, PowerShell, Python).
• Solid understanding of enterprise security practices.
• Strong communication and documentation abilities.
• Ability to perform under pressure and manage complex incidents.