Manager | IT Testing, Change, & Environmental Relations | Full-Time

GENERAL SUMMARY: The Manager - IT Testing, Change, and Environment/Release is responsible for the day-to-day leadership, coordination, and operational execution across Epic testing, Epic-aligned change management, environment allocation, and release management. This role ensures safe, predictable, and high-quality delivery of Epic functionality while protecting system integrity, clinical operations, and organizational readiness. The Manager leads a combined team supporting testing (integrated and supporting other test types), Epic change coordination, and environment/release operations, and serves as a key operational partner to application teams, infrastructure, PMO, and enterprise IT governance groups. The role operates within established enterprise change and governance frameworks while providing Epic-specific expertise, coordination, and execution. The Manager serves as a 24x7 operational escalation point and drives continuous improvement through process discipline, metrics, and effective use of tooling.PRINCIPLE DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Testing Leadership and Oversight Oversees integrated Epic testing and ensures the team supports other testing types (application, unit, MRT, regression, etc.) as able.Organizes, directs, and manages testing activities for Epic upgrades, Service Updates (SUs), enhancements, fixes, and major initiatives. Coordinates testing activities across iterative releases, balancing test milestones with environment availability and release schedules. Ensures testing deliverables, milestones, risks, and outcomes are clearly documented and communicated to stakeholders. Assists with testing strategy across decentralized application teams, providing guidance, standards, and risk awareness. Change Management (Epic-Aligned) Oversees Epic-specific change coordination while aligning to enterprise IT change management and ITSM frameworks. Serves as an active member of the Change Advisory Board (CAB), providing operational insight and advocating for Epic system integrity and readiness. Partners with the central IT Change team to ensure changes are properly vetted, packaged, scheduled, and communicated. Enforces appropriate change controls across production and non-production environments to protect test validity and operational stability. Environment Management •Plans, schedules, and controls deployment and utilization of all non-production Epic environments.Balances project, enhancement, testing, and operational needs across shared environments while mitigating conflicts and risks.Establishes and maintains clear purpose definitions for each environment in partnership with infrastructure and application teams. Coordinates with infrastructure, access administration, and other IT partners to ensure environment readiness, availability, and appropriate access controls. Maintains environment calendars, utilization views, and forward-looking capacity plans. Release Management Oversees Epic release management activities, including upgrades, enhancements, Special Updates, and fixes. Maintains release integrity across non-production and production environments. Identifies and communicates interdependencies, risks, and readiness concerns associated with releases.Participates in operational readiness reviews and go/no-go discussions for Epic releases and major events.Process Ownership, Governance, and Continuous Improvement Serves as the process owner for Epic environment and release management tooling, calendars, and supporting workflows. Develops, maintains, and enforces standard operating procedures, documentation, and audit trails across testing, change, environment, and release activities. Chairs or facilitates governance forums such as the Environment Council to drive alignment, transparency, and decision-making. Maintains compliance with SOC, CAB, ITIL/ITSM, regulatory, and Epic standards. Captures operational signals, lessons learned, and metrics to drive continuous improvement and risk reduction.Performs continual review of emerging AI, automation, and AIOps capabilities applicable to testing, change, environment, and release management; evaluates tools for risk reduction, efficiency, and scalability; and partners with enterprise teams to pilot or adopt appropriate solutions where value is demonstrated.Operational Readiness and Escalation Serves as a 24x7 operational escalation point for testing, change, environment, and release-related issues.Manages escalation paths and coordination across application, infrastructure, vendor, and operational teams.Supports readiness for Epic upgrades, go-lives, environment freezes, DR cutover/cutback events, and critical fix installs. Financial and People Leadership Supports budget planning and maintenance activities by providing operational inputs, utilization data, and forecasting insights (budget ownership retained at the Director level).Provides direct leadership and coaching to a team of approximately five direct reports, including testing leads/analysts and change management resources.Supports matrixed resources and prepares for future growth as scope expands. Fosters a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.EDUCATION/EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Healthcare Informatics, or a related field.Minimum of five (5) years of experience in Epic or EMR testing, environment management, release management, and/or change coordination.Minimum of two (2) years of prior management or supervisory experience.Demonstrated experience operating within enterprise change management and ITSM frameworks.Demonstrated experience partnering with operational support teams to review post go-live defects and incidents, analyze trends arising from incident tickets, and feed those learnings back into testing strategy, scope, and process improvement activities. Practical working knowledge of automation, AI-assisted tooling, or productivity platforms used to scale testing, change, environment, or release activities without proportional increases in staffing (e.g., test automation, workflow automation, analytics, or AI-assisted planning and analysis). Strong analytical, written, and verbal communication skills. Proven ability to coordinate across technical, clinical, and operational stakeholders.CERTIFICATIONS/LICENSURES REQUIRED: Epic certifications preferred, including Data Courier, HODs, or other environment related certifications/badges.Certification or experience in SDLC, Release Management, Project Management, or ITIL preferred.Additional InformationOrganization: Corporate ServicesDepartment: Ascension Helios Technology ExShift: Day JobUnion Code: Not Applicable