Test Environment Manager

Bestman Solutions; Greater London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 105,000; Full time

Job summary

Bestman Solutions is seeking an experienced Test Environment Manager to lead environment strategy, governance, and delivery across a major enterprise transformation programme built on Java, Kafka, OpenShift and Azure.

You will ensure legacy and modern environments are available, stable, and scalable for multiple delivery squads in an agile setting, transforming waterfall-style environments into on‑demand platforms that accelerate delivery and improve quality across the organisation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience managing test environments in large enterprises.
• Strong experience with OpenShift, Kafka, Linux and cloud-native platforms.
• Experience transforming legacy waterfall environments into agile/on-demand environments.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive the overall test environment strategy for the programme.
• Lead the transition from permanent waterfall-based environments to scalable, on-demand agile environments.
• Collaborate with architects, engineering teams, and delivery squads to ensure environments support modern microservices applications.
• Establish standards, governance, and best practices for environment management.
• Design, provision, configure, maintain, and decommission test and production environments.
• Manage environments supporting OpenShift, Kafka, Linux, and legacy platforms.
• Maintain detailed documentation of environment configurations, dependencies, integrations, and standards.
• Support environment planning, scheduling, and capacity management across workstreams.
• Manage environment-related costs, utilisation, and optimisation opportunities.

Skills

OpenShift

Kafka

Linux

Azure

CI/CD

IaC

Ansible

Microservices

Agile

Platform engineering

Tools

Jenkins

GitLab

Azure DevOps

Ansible

Selenium

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Test Environment Manager to lead environment strategy, governance, and delivery across a major enterprise transformation programme.

This is a high-profile role supporting the transition from a complex legacy estate to a modern microservices-based architecture built on Java, Kafka, OpenShift, and Azure.

You will be responsible for ensuring that both legacy and modern environments are available, stable, scalable, and aligned to the needs of multiple delivery squads operating within an agile framework.

You will combine strategic thinking with hands‑on technical expertise, helping transform traditional waterfall-style environments into flexible, on‑demand platforms that accelerate delivery and improve quality across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and drive the overall test environment strategy aligned to the wider transformation programme.
• Lead the transition from permanent waterfall‑based environments to scalable, on‑demand agile environments.
• Collaborate with architects, engineering teams, and delivery squads to ensure environments support modern microservices‑based applications.
• Establish standards, governance, and best practices for environment management across the organisation.
• Design, provision, configure, maintain, and decommission test and production environments.
• Manage environments supporting OpenShift, Kafka, Linux, and legacy platforms.
• Maintain detailed documentation of environment configurations, dependencies, integrations, and technical standards.
• Support environment planning, scheduling, and capacity management across multiple workstreams.
• Manage environment‑related costs, utilisation, and optimisation opportunities.

Support & Troubleshooting

• Provide ongoing support to development, testing, and delivery teams.
• Act as the primary escalation point for environment‑related issues.
• Diagnose and resolve complex platform, infrastructure, and integration challenges.
• Coordinate across development, QA, infrastructure, and support teams to minimise disruption and downtime.

Automation & DevOps Integration

• Implement and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions for automated environment provisioning.
• Integrate environments into CI/CD pipelines to support automated testing and continuous delivery.
• Drive automation initiatives that improve environment consistency, repeatability, and deployment speed.

Monitoring & Reporting

• Monitor environment health, performance, availability, and utilisation.
• Develop dashboards, reporting, and metrics to provide visibility to technical and business stakeholders.
• Proactively identify risks, bottlenecks, and opportunities for improvement.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with engineering, QA, DevOps, infrastructure, and programme leadership teams.
• Communicate environment status, changes, risks, and dependencies effectively.
• Support delivery planning and release management activities across multiple squads.
• Drive ongoing improvements to environment management processes, tooling, and governance.
• Stay current with industry trends and emerging technologies within cloud, platform engineering, and microservices environments.
• Champion best practices across test environment management and platform operations.

Skills & Experience

• 5+ years' experience managing test environments within complex enterprise organisations.
• Strong hands‑on experience with OpenShift, Kafka, and Linux environments.
• Proven experience supporting large‑scale transformation programmes and modernisation initiatives.
• Experience managing environments across both legacy and cloud‑native technology stacks.
• Strong understanding of microservices architecture and container‑based platforms.
• Experience working with Azure cloud services.
• Hands‑on experience with Infrastructure as Code and automation tooling, including Ansible.
• Experience supporting infrastructure projects involving HP NonStop, Linux, and infrastructure engineering.

Technical Skills

• OpenShift platform administration and environment provisioning.
• Kafka environment configuration and support.
• CI/CD tools including Jenkins, GitLab, and Azure DevOps.
• Automation and scripting using Linux Shell, Java, or similar technologies.
• Knowledge of test automation tools including UFT, Selenium, and Cucumber.
• Monitoring and observability tools including Prometheus, Grafana, and Splunk.
• Understanding of environment integration, dependency management, and release processes.