Environments & Release Manager

HomeServe are currently recruiting for an Environments & Release Manager to join the Technology & Change Team in Walsall. The ideal candidate will have lots of examples of working with automation, DevOps/CICD and have proven experience managing releases in a complex multi team environment.
Business partnering skills would be highly beneficial as you will be expected to build positive relationships, influence people and manage stakeholders effectively.
We work in a hybrid way, mostly remote with a requirement to travel into our Walsall office twice a week to work with the team. With that in mind you will be located within a convenient commute to Walsall.

HomeServe Membership Ltd currently operates an eco-system of environments across its four main workstreams of digital, applications, data and general technology. The platforms represent a substantial investment of both money and resources. The environments allow our regulatory and operational solutions to be developed, tested, supported and run. They help us ensure that software, data and configurations deployed into the production environment work first time as intended to provide a great experience to our customers and internal teams alike.

The Environments and Release Manager role supports the strategic and operational needs of HML. The purpose of the role is to optimise the organisation's environments, ensuring consistency, maximising business benefit / efficiency, and cost reduction. You will have a strong focus on implementing automation processes in order to support these needs.,

• Develop and maintain the environment roadmap, focusing on environment management evolution, issue resolution, and housekeeping to ensure platforms are fit for purpose.


• Evaluate and implement new software deployment and configuration management methodologies and technologies.


• Work with the Head of Engineering to increase automated deployment throughput and minimise release dependencies.


Environment Coordination:

• Determine and coordinate the environments used in software development and deployment across all platforms.


• Collaborate with internal technical teams and third-party suppliers to determine the delivery approach, ensuring the support of automated deployment.


• Collaborate with internal technical teams and third-party suppliers to manage and guide the broader application deployment lifecycle including design, planning, environment configuration, CI/CD, monitoring, support documentation, and continuous improvement.


Release Management:

• Manage all end-to-end release activities, including planned development, rehearsals, and production implementation.


• Coordinate release content and effort based on the service request backlog, pending service requests, third-party applications, or operating system updates.


Automation and Tools:

• Collaborate with platform engineers to develop scripts and automation tools to build, integrate, and deploy software releases across various platforms.


Issue and Risk Management:

• Own and resolve any build issues, ensuring timely and effective solutions.


• Manage and report on risks, resolving issues that affect release scope, schedule, and quality.


• Proactively identify potential and existing environmental issues to minimise disruption to testing and release timelines.


Process Improvement:

• Continually improve the release and environment provisioning processes through DevOps and automation principles, defining and maintaining effective, lean processes for managing releases.


• Facilitate compliance and security audits, plan and close audit findings with the help of recommendations.
  
  Excellent analytical, problem solving and communication (verbal and written) skills


• Proven ability and track record managing Microsoft centric software environments


• Strong planning and Organisational skills


• Enthusiasm to work across multiple teams and projects


• Excellent team working. Strong people and stakeholder management skills


• An eye and a passion for detail/accuracy

Desirable:
Competencies

• Ability to thrive in a demanding and fluid organisation


• Positive energy and positive attitude


• Ability to get things done and make things happen


• Articulate confidently and communicate effectively


• Well organised and self-disciplined


• Well developed interpersonal and communication skills


• Azure DevOps (CI/CD, Pipelines, Branching, Merging, Terraform, ARM, etc.).


• Experience of working in an offshore / near-shore delivery model


• Experience of working in an FCA regulated / insurance environment


• Experience of working in an agile environment
  
  Not Specified