I just realized that we might have already solved this. Is this what we would do -

1. start job

2. job listener beforeJob use JobContextImpl.getJobExecution().setRestartPosition(stepIdName)

For future reference, here is the code we are using in #2 above that is working -

import java.util.logging.Logger;

import javax.batch.api.listener.AbstractJobListener;

import javax.batch.runtime.context.JobContext;

import javax.enterprise.context.Dependent;

import javax.inject.Inject;

import javax.inject.Named;

import org.jberet.runtime.context.JobContextImpl;

import com.awginc.batch.JavaBatchExecutor;

@Dependent

@Named()

public class JobRestartListener extends AbstractJobListener {

  @Inject

  private JobContext jobContext;

  @Override

  public void beforeJob() throws Exception {

  JobContextImpl jci = (JobContextImpl) jobContext;

  String restartPosition = System.getProperty(JavaBatchExecutor.restartStep);

  if (restartPosition != null) {

  log.info("Restarting in " + restartPosition);

  jci.getJobExecution().setRestartPosition(restartPosition);

  } else {

  String startPosition = System.getProperty(JavaBatchExecutor.startStep);

  if (startPosition != null) {

  log.info("Starting in " + restartPosition);

  jci.getJobExecution().setRestartPosition(startPosition);

  }

  }

  }

  private final Logger log = Logger.getLogger(this.getClass().getSimpleName());

}