IT Environments Manager

CNA Hardy; Manchester; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

CNA Hardy is seeking an IT Environments Manager to oversee technical environments, ensuring reliability and security. The role involves managing deployments, optimizing performance, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. Ideal candidates will have extensive experience in IT environments, leadership skills, and a strong technical background.

Qualifications

• 5-7 years in IT environments or systems administration.
• 2 years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Hands-on experience with cloud services and automation tools.

Responsibilities

• Oversee and manage IT environment creation and maintenance.
• Lead deployment of applications ensuring minimal downtime.
• Implement security policies to protect data and applications.

Skills

IT infrastructure

Virtualisation technologies

Network management

Scripting

Automation

Problem-solving

Communication

Tools

AWS

Azure

GCP

Terraform

Ansible

Docker

Kubernetes

Jira

Confluence

Job description

The IT Environments Manager plays a pivotal role in overseeing and managing the technical environments within the organisation. This role ensures the optimal setup, configuration, maintenance, and security of both the development and production environments, ensuring that IT systems and infrastructures are reliable, scalable, and secure. The IT Environments Manager will collaborate closely with development teams, infrastructure teams, and other key stakeholders to ensure smooth operations and effective implementation of IT solutions.

Key Responsibilities

Performs a combination of the following duties according to departmental guidelines:

1. Environment Management:

• Oversee and manage the creation, configuration, and maintenance of IT environments, including development, testing, staging, and production.
• Ensure all IT environments are aligned with company policies, standards, and industry best practices.
• Monitor and maintain environment configurations to ensure proper integration and functionality of all systems.

Deployment & Automation:

• Lead and manage the deployment of applications and software to various IT environments, ensuring minimal downtime.
• Collaborate with DevOps and Application Development teams to streamline and automate deployment pipelines and processes.
• Implement tools for continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) to ensure smooth application deployment and environment consistency.

Performance & Scalability:

• Ensure the IT environments are optimised for performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Regularly monitor and assess the environments for performance bottlenecks and take proactive steps to resolve issues.
• Manage resource allocation to ensure environments can handle expected workloads and user demands.

Security & Compliance:

• Implement and manage environment security policies to ensure that data and applications are protected from unauthorised access, data breaches, and vulnerabilities.
• Ensure compliance with relevant regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, DORA, etc) within all IT environments.
• Maintain and enforce security standards for environment access, including user authentication and authorisation controls.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Management:

• Work closely with cross-functional teams such as development, operations, quality assurance, and business units to understand requirements and deliver appropriate environments.
• Provide technical support and troubleshooting for environment-related issues, ensuring minimal impact to ongoing projects or business operations.
• Communicate environment status, incidents, and maintenance schedules to stakeholders across the organisation.

Documentation & Reporting:

• Develop and maintain detailed documentation on environment configurations, deployment processes, and troubleshooting guides.
• Generate and deliver regular reports on the status, health, and performance of IT environments.
• Ensure proper version control and configuration management practices are followed across environments.

Incident Management & Problem Resolution:

• Respond to and manage incidents related to IT environments, including identifying the root cause and applying corrective actions.
• Coordinate with relevant teams to resolve environment-related issues as quickly as possible to minimise downtime or disruptions.

Capacity Planning:

• Regularly assess current environment capacities and plan for future growth, ensuring environments are adequately provisioned to support upcoming projects or business expansions.
• Collaborate with infrastructure and cloud teams to provision resources effectively and cost-efficiently.

Update management on the progress of owned tasks.

Escalate issues as appropriate.

Manage assigned risks and issues.

Adhere to change, project, and analysis standards defined by CNA Hardy’s management functions.

Perform other duties as directed by the Development Manager or CNA Hardy management.

Skills, Knowledge & Abilities

Experience:

• At least 5-7 years of experience in IT environments, systems administration, or DevOps, with at least 2 years in a leadership or managerial role.
• Experience managing complex IT environments, including development, testing, staging, and production setups.
• Hands-on experience with cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) and infrastructure automation tools (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, Puppet, Chef).
• Experience with containerisation (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) and microservices architectures is a plus.

Skills:

• Strong knowledge of IT infrastructure, virtualisation technologies, and network management.
• Proficiency in scripting and automation (e.g., Bash, Python, PowerShell).
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation.
• Experience with environment monitoring tools (e.g., Prometheus, Nagios, Datadog).
• Knowledge of security best practices and compliance standards in IT environments.
• Excellent problem-solving, troubleshooting, and analytical skills.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to collaborate across technical and non-technical teams.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with container orchestration platforms (e.g., Kubernetes).
• Familiarity with agile methodologies and project management tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence).

The Company

CNA Hardy is a leading specialist commercial insurance provider for clients within the Lloyd’s and company markets. We offer a highly specialised and comprehensive portfolio of innovative and market leading products. Coverage is available to businesses of all sizes for domestic, international and global exposures.