MQ Automation Engineer (Chef Cookbook Development)6-12 months - Pure contractDallas, TXHybrid – 3 Days onsite$50.00/hr c2cWe are seeking a hands-on Automation Engineer with strong Chef expertise to design, develop, and maintain Chef cookbooks for IBM MQ build and configuration management. This role is critical in driving Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) adoption, standardizing MQ deployments, and enabling automated, repeatable, and compliant messaging platform provisioning across hybrid and cloud environments.The ideal candidate combines strong MQ platform knowledge with Chef-based automation and has experience delivering end-to-end lifecycle automation for queue managers, infrastructure configuration, and operational tooling.Key ResponsibilitiesDesign, develop, and maintain Chef cookbooks to automate:IBM MQ installation, upgrade and patchingQueue manager creation and configurationMQ object deployment (queues, channels, listeners)Build idempotent Chef roles and recipes ensuring consistent and repeatable deployments across environmentsEnsure configuration parity across Dev, QA, and Prod environments through Chef deploymentsIntegrate Chef cookbooks into CI/CD pipelines for automated MQ provisioning and updatesVersion, test, and promote cookbooks through controlled environmentsDevelop and execute unit, integration, and kitchen/inspec tests for cookbooksValidate automation against performance, resiliency, and compliance requirementsEnsure deployments are repeatable and eliminate manual configuration driftProvide L3 support for automation-related issues in MQ environmentsContribute to standards, best practices, and automation frameworksRequired QualificationsStrong hands-on experience with Chef (cookbooks, recipes, roles, environments)5+ years of experience in configuration management / IaC automationWorking knowledge of IBM MQ administration:Queue managers, channels, clusteringMQ configuration (QM.INI, logging, security)Experience with Linux/Unix environmentsFamiliarity with:CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, Git-based workflows)