Product Manager ( IBM MQ / Messaging ) - #2171260

Smartedges Client is looking for an individual to help with their Enterprise Integration Product Manager _ Contract _ Sheffield, UK_ Hybrid

Own and drive the product management of client’s messaging, integration and observability platforms—IBM MQ, App Connect Enterprise (ACE), IBM Transformation Extender (ITX), IBM Tivoli Monitoring (ITM) and Instana—ensuring these services are secure, resilient, compliant, cost-effective, and aligned to engineering and business needs. This is a UK-based GCB4 role requiring strong cross-functional leadership, clear decision-making, and end-to-end accountability for platform outcomes.

Principal responsibilities:

Define and maintain a multi-quarter product roadmap covering currency, resilience, security improvements, automation and consumer experience.

Own platform lifecycle management across the estate: standard versions, upgrade plans, deprecation/exit strategy, and technical debt prioritization.Shape and priorities demand using transparent criteria (risk reduction, service stability, regulatory requirements, cost, and customer impact).

Set and maintain standards and reference patterns for:

IBM MQ (configuration baselines, connectivity patterns, TLS/mTLS, authorization, auditing/logging).

ACE (integration patterns, deployment/runtime standards, operational governance).

ITX (map governance, version control, runtime deployment and controls).

ITM/Instana (monitoring coverage, alert policy, dashboards, noise reduction standards).

Lead governance forums to manage exceptions, reduce fragmentation, and improve time-to-deliver for consuming teams.

Maintain product documentation and service catalogue entries, ensuring clarity on “what’s supported” and “how to consume”.

Be accountable for service health outcomes: availability, stability, performance, capacity and resilience.

Define and track SLIs/SLOs and KPIs (incident trends, MTTR, change failure rate, platform performance indicators).

Drive operational excellence through:

Major incident review leadership and root cause elimination

Problem management, reliability engineering initiatives and runbook maturity

Ensure DR/HA expectations are defined, tested, and evidenced.

Convert roadmap into a prioritized backlog and delivery plan with engineering, SRE/operations, and program partners.

Lead delivery of platform initiatives (upgrades, migrations, monitoring rollouts, automation, hardening).

Ensure changes meet non-functional requirements and are delivered through appropriate change/release governance with clear consumer communications.

Ensure platform security posture meets requirements: patching/vulnerability remediation, secure configuration, access controls, certificate lifecycle management.

Own and manage product risk items and remediation plans; support audits by providing evidence and driving findings to closure.

Partner effectively with cyber security, architecture and risk teams to design and implement compliant solutions.

Act as the primary senior interface for application teams, architecture, operations/SRE, cyber, and service management stakeholders.

Communicate roadmap, standards, service health and key changes clearly; manage expectations and dependencies across teams.

Drive improvements to consumer onboarding and adoption through templates, reference implementations and enablement.

Manage IBM/tooling vendor relationships, including escalation of support cases and roadmap alignment.

Own licensing and cost management: utilization analysis, renewal planning, optimization and avoidance of waste.

Set platform standards and approve/decline non-standard implementations (via governance).

Prioritise backlog items and sequence delivery against capacity and risk.

Success measures (example KPIs):

Reduction in high-severity incidents and repeat issues; improved MTTR.

% estate on supported versions (MQ/ACE/ITX) and patch/vulnerability compliance within agreed timelines.

Monitoring/observability coverage via ITM/Instana; reduced alert noise and increased actionable alert rate.

Demonstrable cost optimization (license efficiency, consolidation outcomes).

Delivery of roadmap commitments on time with clear consumer satisfaction feedback.

Skills & experience:

• Strong experience in product/service management for enterprise platforms (middleware, integration, messaging, monitoring/observability), ideally in a regulated environment.
• Deep knowledge of IBM MQ and solid working knowledge of ACE, ITX and observability tools (ITM/Instana or equivalent).
• Proven track record in platform lifecycle management (upgrade programs, standardization, deprecation, tech debt).
• Strong operational mindset: incident/problem management, capacity planning, resilience (HA/DR), SLI/SLO-based performance management.
• Strong stakeholder management and ability to influence across multiple teams and senior stakeholders.
• Experience managing large-scale, multi-region deployments of messaging/integration/observability platforms across multiple geographies and time zones, including operating model alignment (follow-the-sun support), standardization across regions, and managing regional regulatory/latency constraints.
• Proven delivery experience with IBM MQ in a complex enterprise estate (hundreds/thousands of queue managers or large application population)

Connect with my Colleague or email my Colleague at [email protected]

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Contact via +44 (0) 203813196