QA Infrastructure & Data Lead

ERCOT; Taylor (TX); On-site; USD 122,262 - 207,828; Full time

Job summary

ERCOT is seeking a Test Environment & Data Lead in Taylor, Texas. This role is pivotal for the governance and improvement of non-production test environments, ensuring compliance and stability. You'll manage test data, collaborate with technical teams, and implement test data management strategies. The ideal candidate has over 8 years of IT experience, with a strong background in QA operations and project management. Expected salary range is $122,262 - $207,828.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in IT operations, QA operations, or release management.
• 3+ years managing non-production environments and test data.
• Experience with relational databases (e.g., Oracle and SQL Server).

Responsibilities

• Manage lifecycle of Test and Pre-Prod environments.
• Ensure environment readiness before test cycles.
• Coordinate provisioning, upgrades, and patching.

Skills

IT operations

QA operations

release management

cloud environments

project management

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins)

ServiceNow

Ansible

Job description

Overview

At ERCOT, our diverse and dynamic work environment provides a platform on which employees can work together to build the future of the Texas power grid and wholesale market utilizing the latest technologies and resources. We encourage you to join our talented, dedicated workforce to develop world-class solutions for today and tomorrow’s energy challenges while learning new skills and growing your career. ERCOT is committed to fostering inclusion at all levels of our company. It is the cornerstone of our corporate values of accountability, leadership, innovation, trust, and expertise. We know that individuals with a wide variety of talents, ideas, and experiences propel the innovation that drives our success. An inclusive and diverse workforce strengthens us and allows for a collaborative environment to solve the challenges that face our industry today and in the future.

Job Summary

The Test Environment & Data Lead is accountable for the governance, stability, and continuous improvement of all non-production test environments to ensure secure, compliant, and release-ready systems. This role oversees end-to-end environment lifecycle management, including configuration control, test data governance, environmental use and data refreshes. The lead ensures alignment with Quality Assurance and Release & Change Management standards to minimize operational, product, and data-related risks. In addition, this role is responsible for maintaining data integrity and consistency across environments by coordinating controlled test data refresh cycles, validating post-migration data accuracy, and ensuring compliance with data privacy, security, and regulatory requirements. Close collaboration with Database, Infrastructure, and Security teams is required to ensure environments are production-representative, audit-ready, and optimized for consistent, reliable, and predictable testing outcomes. The Environment & Test Data lead serves as a critical quality and data control point, safeguarding both system stability and data accuracy across the non-production landscape.

Responsibilities

• Broadly applies principles, theories and concepts related to the profession. A seasoned, experienced professional with an in-depth/full understanding of area of specialization.
• May provide recommendations regarding issues outside the bounds of defined procedures and practices. Demonstrates good judgment in selecting methods and techniques for obtaining solutions.
• Wide latitude for decisions within assignments, programs and projects; impact is generally limited to the project or department.
• Acts as a resource to advise and may at times lead the work of lower level professional and/or support employees. Generally represents the department on projects and may perform in a project leadership role.

Additional Job Duties

• Own lifecycle management of Test and Pre-Prod environments
• Maintain environment configuration baselines and version inventory
• Ensure environment readiness before test cycles
• Coordinate provisioning, upgrades, and patching with platform teams
• Monitor environment stability, availability, and performance
• Manage environment scheduling and conflict resolution
• Prevent version drift between QA and Production
• Execute the QA Test Data Management strategy and roadmap
• Collaborate with Release Management, the PMO, Application Services, and other IT areas in designing and implementing an enterprise test data repository for development testing
• Plan, schedule and communicate test system refreshes, time-sliced data refreshes, on-demand test data requests and coordinate with IT for virtual test environments as needed
• Work independently and communicate with all levels of management in a timely and accurate manner
• Define the test data management architecture and tool strategies
• Deliver, implement and oversee a newly formed Test Data Management service within QA and Test Management
• Establish service levels for the TDM shared service, including reporting and service valuation
• Coordinate work of decentralized business application teams with demand management models across multiple projects
• Implement methodologies for automated test data generation, test reusability and data privacy
• Build and maintain a central repository of test data and test environment models across lines of business
• Define and implement the scope of a release test environment and test data needs
• Maintain policy framework for ERCOT’s Test Data and Environment capabilities
• Develop processes for maintaining gold copy of test data sets for programs, projects and releases
• Adhere to department operating procedures and corporate standards
• Communicate with stakeholders and management
• Adhere to audit and compliance standards regarding QA practices
• Identify and implement process improvements aligned with ERCOT’s testing framework
• Manage, mentor and coach staff on test data and test environment principles and practices
• Develop and publish KPIs to communicate delivery practices for test data and test environments
• Maintain knowledge of emerging trends and industry best practices
• Support multiple streams of projects of varying complexity
• Create and meet timelines cognizant of business needs and constraints
• Demonstrate strong leadership, communication, negotiation, and conflict management skills
• Exhibit self-motivation, attention to detail and customer service orientation

Experience

• Requires minimum 8+ years in IT operations, QA operations, or release management.
• 3+ years managing non-production environments and test data.
• Experience in system design, programming and troubleshooting with relational databases (e.g., Oracle and SQL Server)
• Experience with version control, deployments, and migration governance.
• Strong understanding of SDLC, STLC, and change management.
• Experience in cloud or hybrid environments.
• Demonstrated project management experience managing implementations of new enterprise-wide technology initiatives
• Experience with service virtualization technologies
• Proven track record of effectively working in a highly collaborative environment
• Experience with DevOps and QA tools for provisioning test data and test environments
• Familiarity with AI-based environment monitoring or anomaly detection.
• Experience leveraging automation for deployment validation.
• Understanding predictive analytics for environment capacity or failure detection.
• Exposure to synthetic test data generation tools (preferred).

Technical Skills

• CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub, etc.)
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, ARM, etc.)
• Monitoring/observability platforms (Splunk, Dynatrace)
• Management tools (ServiceNow, JIRA, QTest, etc.)
• Other tools (Ansible, Rubric, AppSync)

Education

Bachelor's Degree: Computer Science, MIS or related field (Required) or a combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge to a major in such fields is required

ERCOT is firmly committed to equal employment for all qualified persons without regard to race, sex, medical condition, religion, age, creed, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, ancestry, veteran status, genetic information or any other protected category under federal, state or local law.

Expected Salary Range

$122,262 - $207,828