Test Environments Team Lead Job Description

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The Test Environments Team Lead requires a seasoned leader who has experience managing multiple test environments across a
complex technological landscape.  The Test Environments Team Lead will collaborate with multiple IT groups to establish and maintain industry standard environment processes that maximize productivity and deliver high quality releases into production.  This role will recommend and
implement continuous environment process improvements.  This individual will lead a small team of Test Environment Engineers.  (S)he also ensures that all test 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 Environments Team Lead is responsible for leading a small team of Environment Engineers and acting as the gateway to production control for all IT projects. (S)he will manage the function to validate code to be promoted, using QA principles, throughout the application life cycle. (S)he will also setup, refresh, synchronize, and validate all IT testing 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.
• Innovate and monitor future trends, technologies and IT environment solutions.
• 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 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.
• Broad understanding of existing technologies and a willingness to learn and implement new technologies.
• Solid 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:

• Manage small team of Test Environment Engineers.
• Manage schedule of code installations and coordinate activity with supporting teams as required.
• Train and improve the Test Environments Engineers expertise and foster knowledge exchange between team members.
• Foster operational excellence through streamlined IT processes, standardization and automation.
• Highly focused on building quality assurance best practices.
• Lead efforts with enforcing test environment processes to all levels of management.
• Strong ability to strategically implement and improve multiple new test environment processes.
• Able to maintain a calm but focused sense of operational urgency.
• 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.
• Motivated self-starter who is 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:

• Four-year degree in computer science or business-related      major preferred.
• Ten or more years’ proven experience in IT      Support, Delivery and Operations.
• 5+ years’ proven experience leading a small IT      team.
• 5+ years’ experience supporting distributed      computing environments.
• 5+ years’ hands on experience with Microsoft      based systems.
• Firm understanding of TCP/IP, IP addressing,      sub-netting, FTP, SMTP, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, and DHCP.
• 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.
• Solid 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.