Senior Test Environment & Platform Manager – OpenShift / Kafka Location: London – 8 days onsite per month, remainder remoteContract: Inside IR35Rate: Flexible
Role Overview We are seeking an experienced Senior Test Environment & Platform Manager to support a major enterprise technology transformation, moving from a legacy monolithic landscape towards a modern microservices-based architecture using Java, Kafka and OpenShift. This is a highly technical Test Environment Management position combining environment strategy and ownership with hands-on platform engineering capability. The successful candidate will be responsible for supporting both the existing legacy landscape and the new microservices environment, while helping transform the organisation’s approach from permanent, Waterfall-style environments towards automated, on-demand environments capable of supporting Agile delivery squads. This is not a purely managerial or coordination-focused Test Environment role. Candidates MUST have demonstrable hands-on technical experience with OpenShift and Kafka.
Key Responsibilities
- Test Environment Strategy & Transformation Own and drive the Test Environment Management strategy across a large-scale transformation programme.
- Define the approach for transitioning from permanent/shared Waterfall-style environments towards on-demand Agile environments.
- Work closely with architects, engineering teams, developers, QA and delivery squads to understand environment requirements.
- Ensure environments can effectively support both legacy applications and new microservices-based services.
- Define environment standards, processes, governance and operating models.
- Environment & Platform Management Support the design, provisioning, configuration, maintenance and decommissioning of environments.
- Provide hands-on technical support across OpenShift, Kafka and Linux-based environments.
- Manage environment configurations, dependencies and integration points.
- Coordinate environment availability and scheduling across multiple projects and Agile squads.
- Support environment capacity planning, utilisation and costing.
- Maintain appropriate documentation covering environment configurations and dependencies.
- Continue supporting legacy infrastructure alongside the modern platform landscape.
- Technical Support & Troubleshooting Provide hands-on technical support and troubleshooting for environment-related issues.
- Diagnose issues across OpenShift, Kafka, Linux and associated infrastructure.
- Work across Development, QA, Infrastructure, DevOps and Operations teams to resolve complex environment issues.
- Identify environment dependencies and potential blockers before they impact delivery.
- Automation & CI/CD Drive greater automation across environment provisioning and management.
- Implement and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approaches using technologies such as Ansible.
- Integrate environments with CI/CD pipelines to support automated testing and continuous delivery.
- Support tooling including Jenkins, GitLab and Azure DevOps.
- Reduce manual environment provisioning and improve environment consistency and repeatability.
- Monitoring & Continuous Improvement Monitor environment availability, health, performance and utilisation.
- Develop appropriate metrics and dashboards for environment reporting.
- Work with monitoring and logging technologies such as Prometheus, Grafana and Splunk.
- Identify opportunities to improve environment reliability, automation, scalability and cost efficiency.
- Drive continuous improvement across Test Environment Management processes.
Essential Experience
- 5+ years’ experience within Test Environment Management in complex enterprise technology environments.
- Demonstrable experience defining and delivering Test Environment strategies.
- Hands-on OpenShift experience, including environment setup, configuration, support and troubleshooting.
- Hands-on Kafka experience, including supporting/configuring Kafka-based environments.
- Strong Linux infrastructure/engineering experience.
- Strong understanding of microservices and containerised architectures.
- Experience with Kubernetes and Docker.
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code and environment automation.
- Ansible or equivalent automation experience.
- Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices.
- Experience supporting complex transformation programmes involving both legacy and modern technology environments.
- Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving capability.
- Ability to work effectively across Development, QA, Infrastructure, Architecture and Operations teams.
Highly Desirable Experience
- Azure / Azure DevOps
- Jenkins / GitLab
- Terraform or other IaC technologies
- HP NonStop infrastructure
- Java-based environments
- Prometheus / Grafana / Splunk
- UFT / Selenium / Cucumber
- Linux shell scripting
- Large-scale financial services or similarly complex regulated environments
*Rates depend on experience and client requirements
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