QA Infrastructure & Data Lead

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, while maintaining data integrity and consistency across environments.

• Own lifecycle management of Test and Pre‑Production 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.
• Work with Release Management, PMO, Application Services, and other IT teams to design and implement an enterprise test data repository.
• Plan, schedule, and communicate test system refreshes, time‑sliced data refreshes, and on‑demand test data requests.
• Define test data management architecture and tool strategies.
• Deliver, implement, and oversee a new Test Data Management service within the QA and Test Management Department.
• Establish service‑level objectives for the TDM shared service, including reporting and valuation.
• Coordinate highly de‑centralized business application teams, implementing demand‑management operating models that proactively source and manage test data on multiple concurrent projects.
• Implement automated test data generation, test reusability, and data privacy methodologies.
• Build and maintain a central repository of test data and test environment models across multiple lines of business.
• Define the scope of releases’ test environment and test data needs.
• Maintain and implement the 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.
• Communicate with stakeholders and management.
• Adhere to audit and compliance standards regarding QA practices.
• Identify and implement process improvements in alignment 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.

• 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 (Oracle, 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 enterprise‑wide technology initiatives.
• Experience with service virtualization technologies.
• Proven track record of working collaboratively in cross‑functional teams.
• Knowledge of Dev Ops and QA tools used for provisioning test data and test environments.
• Familiarity with AI‑based environment monitoring or anomaly detection.
• Experience leveraging automation for deployment validation.
• Understanding of predictive analytics for environment capacity or failure detection.
• Exposure to synthetic test data generation tools (preferred).
• Technical skills: CI/CD tools (Azure Dev Ops, Jenkins, Git Hub, etc.), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, ARM, etc.), monitoring/observability platforms (Splunk, Dynatrace), management tools (Service Now, JIRA, Qtest, etc.), and other tools (Ansible, Rubric, App Sync).

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, MIS, or a related field is required, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.

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.

$135,000 – $185,000