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.

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.

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

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

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

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