Test and Release Manager

Location: London, Watford or Bristol (Hybrid working options available)

The Test and Release Manager – Customer Engineering is responsible for planning and managing end to end testing and release activities across the Customer Engineering estate, with Salesforce Financial Services Cloud (FSC) at its core.

Operating as an individual contributor, the role owns quality and release outcomes across Salesforce led customer service journeys and the integrated systems that support them, from initial unit testing through to system, integration and business user acceptance testing (UAT). It ensures that changes delivered via Salesforce FSC configuration, custom development, integrations and downstream systems are robust, compliant and aligned to business and regulatory expectations.

Working as part of cross functional product and engineering teams, the Test and Release Manager defines and coordinates test strategies, embeds modern quality engineering practices (including automation and AI enabled testing), and plans and scopes releases within Customer Engineering, coordinating with other end to end teams across the wider technology estate as required4. The role is critical in maintaining platform stability, optimising release cadence and ensuring that customer and colleague experiences are protected through controlled, predictable change.

Duties/Responsibilities

• Plan, coordinate and oversee all test phases (unit, system, integration and business UAT) for changes impacting Customer Engineering platforms, ensuring alignment of scope, timelines and entry/exit criteria across teams. Work closely with Product Owners, Developers, Architects and Business Analysts so that quality is built in from discovery through to delivery.
• Define and maintain the test strategy for Salesforce Financial Services Cloud and related customer service journeys, covering configuration, custom Apex, Lightning components, flows, validation rules, APIs and integrations8. Assure quality across end to end financial services processes such as customer onboarding, servicing, case management and data flows.
• Design, implement and maintain automated tests for Salesforce FSC and integrated systems, embedding test automation into CI/CD pipelines to minimise manual testing and accelerate feedback. Champion modern testing practices such as shift left testing, TDD/BDD, risk based testing, AI assisted test design/execution and collaborative ownership of quality across delivery teams.
• Own the scoping and planning of releases within Customer Engineering, including the definition of release content, risk assessment and readiness criteria. Coordinate Customer Engineering releases with other end to end product and platform teams to ensure coherent, non conflicting changes across the integrated estate. Contribute to the publication and communication of the wider release calendar where relevant.
• Conduct release readiness reviews, providing input to go/no go decisions based on test results, risk profile, defects and business impact. Define and apply standard mechanisms for rollback and capture release related performance indicators (e.g. defect leakage, incident trends, release stability) to drive continual improvement.
• Work with the Release and Environment Manager, Development and QA teams to ensure appropriate non production environments, data and configuration are available and aligned to support end to end testing and release activities. Help set quality gates for environment readiness and promote consistent environment management practices.
• Monitor Salesforce FSC and integrated system health, along with release and test process performance, identifying opportunities for improving quality, efficiency and automation coverage11. Feed insights into backlog and process improvement forums.
• Provide clear, timely communication to IT and business stakeholders on test and release status, risks, issues and dependencies. Manage test and release risks and exceptions, working with teams to resolve issues that may affect scope, schedule or quality.

Skills, Knowledge and Experience

• Proven experience in testing Salesforce solutions, including FSC data models, configuration, customisation and integration.
• Hands on experience with Salesforce testing, including flows, validation rules, Apex, Lightning components and API.
• Significant experience planning and managing end to end test activities (unit, system, integration and UAT) in complex, integrated environments, ideally within financial services.
• Experience implementing and maintaining test automation for Salesforce and integrated systems, embedded into CI/CD pipelines.
• Familiarity with automation frameworks and scripting/coding languages (e.g. Apex, C# or equivalent) and with cloud based infrastructure and managed services.
• Strong understanding of modern quality practices such as shift left testing, TDD/BDD, risk based testing, pairing and collaborative ownership of quality.
• Knowledge of waterfall and lean agile software development and testing lifecycles and methodologies (Scrum/Kanban.
• Strong analytical and problem solving skills with the ability to see across systems and processes, recognise patterns and identify opportunities to improve quality and efficiency.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; able to influence, facilitate and negotiate with distributed, cross functional teams and business stakeholders.
• Ability to deliver under pressure and to tight timescales, managing multiple releases and test activities simultaneously in a constantly changing environment.
• Curious, proactive and committed to continuous learning, particularly within the Salesforce ecosystem and emerging AI enabled testing tools.