Test Environment Engineer II Job Description

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The Test Environment Engineer II requires experience managing multiple test environments across a complex technological landscape.  The Environment Engineer II will collaborate with multiple IT groups in maintaining industry standard environment processes that maximize productivity and deliver high quality releases into production.  This technical position manages and implements the migration of software between the development, testing, and production environments. (S)he also ensures that all environments are setup, refreshed, synchronized, and ready for the deployment of new applications. This role requires a strong blend of technical expertise with excellent communication skills with the ability to influence positive change.

Responsibilities:

The Test Environment Engineer II is responsible for acting as the gateway to production control for all IT projects. (S)he will validate code to be promoted, using QA principles, throughout the application life cycle. (S)he will also refresh, synchronize, and validate all IT testing and production environments. Responsibilities include:

• Ensure only tested, approved and properly traceable changes to testing and production environments are accepted and recorded, from the point of receipt to implementation—always based on appropriate controlling documentation.
• Take part in the Release Management process in collaboration with the Configuration Manager, Project Manager, and production control personnel.
• Ensure coordination between applications and projects in case of shared production environment changes.
• Ensure test environments are stable and available 24×7.
• Point of escalation for test environments related issues.   Diagnose and resolve complex customer issues in accessing test environments.
• Maintain traceability of all current and historical changes to IT test and production environments for each project and application throughout its life cycle.
• Act early on as a partner of the project manager, application architect and lead developer for matters of deployment planning. Take a lead role in go/No-go decision making, based on environmental planning best practices.
• Provide recommendations to integrate quality assurance and production control procedures.
• Produce and manage appropriate technical deliverables.
• Understand multiple technologies to guarantee quality testing is performed on all appropriate application systems.
• Escalate, communicate and document any issues arising from operational/production jobs.
• Track and control environmental changes. Track the status of environmental change requests (e.g., code posts) to closure.      Determine the impact that the change will have on environmental support and related production schedules.
• Collaborate and communicate with the Configuration Manager to ensure that new and updated systems are properly documented and incorporated into the Configuration Management process.
• Oversee all IT development and QA environments to maintain the integrity of the systems. Ensure that all appropriate IT      environments are regularly synchronized and refreshed throughout the project and application lifecycles.

II. Know-How

• Technical/Specialized:
• Expert familiarity with mainframe and distributed IT environments.
• Expert understanding of IT environmental control concepts and guidelines.
• Ability to coordinate release strategies with Project Managers.
• Good understanding of existing technologies and a willingness to learn and implement new technologies.
• Basic understanding of load balancing technologies.
• Strong knowledge of production control best practices and ability to implement new concepts and processes.
• Broad familiarity with IT quality assurance and testing principles. 

B.  Managerial:

• Train and mentor Environment Engineer and contractors.
• Comfortable enforcing quality guidelines to all levels of management.
• Highly focused on building quality assurance best practices.
• Foster operational excellence through streamlined IT processes, standardization and automation.
• Able to maintain a calm but focused sense of operational urgency.
• Ability to strategically implement and improve multiple new test environment processes.
• Demonstrated ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Strong project management and organizational skills.
• Keen attention to details, quality and schedule commitments.
• Proven ability to coordinate environment related work with development, system administration, DBA, and production control. 

C.  Human Relations Skills:

• Strong customer service focus.
• Strong interpersonal skills.
• Self-directed and performance driven.
• Excellent team player with willingness to develop others in order to deliver outstanding results.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.

III. Problem Solving:

Strong analytical, problem-solving, and conceptual skills. This role will be required to assess multiple technical processes and environments, and recommend solutions to IT leadership and project teams.

Experience and Education for Test Environment Engineer II:

• Four-year degree in computer science or business-related major preferred.
• Seven or more years’ experience in a team IT environment with production control and/or QA-related responsibilities.
• 4+ years’ experience supporting distributed computing environments.
• 4+ years’ hands on experience with Microsoft based systems.
• Insurance-related experience preferred.
• MCSE, or an equivalent job-related certification preferred.
• Full understanding of the IT project and software development lifecycles.
• Experience implementing ITIL Release Management preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to meet commitments in a large IT project environment.
• Basic understanding of configuration management concepts and disciplines.
• Understanding of developing and networking concepts, several platforms, SOX guidelines and Disaster Recovery concepts.
• Automated testing software knowledge preferred.