Engineering Manager

Environment Manager – Store Technology Labs & Infrastructure

Location: Bracknell (3 days per week onsite)

Contract: 6–12 Months

Rate: £400–£500 per day (Inside IR35)

Reporting To: Engineering Manager

Send CV to: ***email_hidden***

About the Role

A critical part of this position is the ownership, development, and maintenance of retail technology laboratory environments that accurately replicate live store estates.

These environments are used to test, validate, and certify new hardware, software, payment solutions, self-checkout systems, and emerging in-store technologies before deployment into production stores. As a result, we're looking for someone with proven experience designing, building, and managing realistic retail test labs rather than purely managing environments from a governance perspective.

Key Responsibilities

• Own and manage multiple retail technology lab environments that replicate real-world store configurations.
• Build, maintain, and evolve store lab environments to mirror current and future production estates.
• Configure and support POS, Self-Checkout, payment devices, scanners, printers, customer displays, handheld devices, and supporting infrastructure.
• Ensure lab environments remain representative of live stores to enable accurate testing and validation.
• Coordinate environment availability for Engineering, Product, Test, Release, and Programme teams.
• Support proof-of-concepts, pilot initiatives, and new store technology deployments by creating fit-for-purpose test environments.
• Manage hardware refreshes, lifecycle planning, and equipment standards across the labs.
• Work with engineering teams to deploy approved builds, software releases, and hardware configurations into non-production environments.
• Act as the custodian of all lab hardware, software, firmware, and environment documentation.

Essential Experience

• Proven experience building and managing retail technology laboratories or test environments that replicate live store estates.
• Hands-on experience setting up complete store environments for testing purposes, including POS tills, Self-Checkout systems, payment terminals, scanners, printers, networking equipment, and associated peripherals.
• Strong understanding of how retail stores operate from a technology perspective and how production environments should be replicated within a lab setting.
• Experience maintaining environment integrity and ensuring test environments accurately reflect production configurations.
• Previous experience supporting large-scale retail technology programmes and store deployments.
• Experience using deployment and imaging tools such as MECM, SCCM, Intune, or equivalent.
• Strong knowledge of POS platforms, payment technologies, and store infrastructure.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate will have previously owned a retail POS or store technology lab environment and will understand the importance of creating accurate replicas of live stores to enable effective testing, troubleshooting, release validation, and pilot activity. You'll be equally comfortable hands-on with hardware and software as you are managing stakeholders, governance, and environment strategy.