Position Summary:

The Release Manager is responsible for driving the release management and partial Scrum Master function (as needed) across product and development delivery teams involving the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and/or Program/Project Management frameworks. You will own the Release Management lifecycle which includes scheduling, coordinating and the management of releases across the enterprise for multiple applications across various portfolios. These responsibilities require a firm grasp of release management, agile delivery concepts, and a keen eye on continuous improvement.

Key Responsibilities:

• Drive the scheduling, managing and coordination of releases across multiple products and different teams and projects.
• Partner with delivery and change management leadership in managing and mitigating risks regarding release quality and schedule.
• Continuously monitor release cycles and provide tracking reports about delivery progress and implementations.
• Lead release planning and scheduling activities, including defining release scope, creating release calendars, and coordinating release timelines with stakeholders.
• Maintain accurate and up-to-date release documentation, including release plans, deployment scripts, version control logs, and release notes.
• Facilitate release planning meetings, deployment readiness reviews, and post-release retrospectives.
• Drive compliance and adherence to delivery and release frameworks, SDLC processes, guidelines, best practices, and tools to achieve successful project outcomes.
• Partner with delivery leaders to define, and track Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s), including leveraging the output to drive continuous improvement.
• Work closely with the Product Group Managers, Development Managers, Relationship Management, Documentation, Scrum Masters and Project Managers to ensure consistency of communications regarding software release planning and delivery.
• Work with development and technical operations to improve the software engineering processes and practices associated with continuously building, deploying, and updating software and environments.
• May manage or oversee a group or team of scrum masters. Responsible for delegation, delivery, coaching, mentoring, quality work effort/output and career development of resources.
• Assist in managing projects and interdependencies to ensure milestone adherence to ensure the integrity of the release with quality measurements/business outcomes.
• Ensure all team members are adhering to implementation best practices.
• Monitoring the release process and collecting feedback from the teams as well as customers.
• Communicate the project-related tasks such as plans, timelines, requirements, and deliverables between different teams.
• Coordinate the release schedule and resources required for implementation, validation, and support.
• Identify the risks that can delay the release and manage them, such that the scope scheduled, and without impacts to the quality of the release.
• Work with release engineers to understand impacts of branches and code merges
• Schedule and drive the release readiness reviews, including Go/No-Go sessions, before deployment and milestone reviews after each release.
• Plan and give weekly updates on the release activities.
• Engage with Product Managers and Tech. Leads to elevate release plan visibility within governance forums such as Quarterly Commitment Meetings, Capacity Planning, and the BetaNXT Technical Review Board (TRB).
• Collaborate with relevant delivery teams responsible for building the automation tools used to develop and deploy the software.
• Submit and review release schedules with CAB (Change Advisory Board) meetings.
• Produce Deployment, Run Books, and Implementation Plans.
• Drive release cadence discussions and recognize opportunities to adapt release schedules to client and/or organizational needs.
• Maintain documentation related to procedures on build and release, various notifications, and dependencies.
• Research new software development and release management methodologies and technologies and analyzes their application to current needs.

Using a servant leader mindset and expert knowledge of agile practices and the scrum framework you’ll help enable the delivery of high-quality customer facing applications.Core responsibilities will include:

• Scrum Master for at least one application development/delivery team
• Facilitates daily stand-up, release and iteration planning, sprint review, and retrospectives
• Guides team in story pointing and work effort estimates
• Supports product owner(s) with intra-team dynamics with respect to priorities and scope
• Partners with project management to develop and track project risks and delivery output and timelines
• Drive team iteration execution, communicates with management and stakeholders
• Leads multi-team sprint review preparation and presentation
• Able to do post-mortem and root cause analysis to help teams continuously improve their practices to ensure maximum productivity
• Leads team effort in relentless improvement
• Proactively identify and eliminate impediments
• Presents high level project readouts for program leadership and senior management

Education, Key Competencies and Skills Required:

• BA/BS degree or equivalent work experience

• Minimum of 3-5 years of Release Management experience; 4-6 years with software development background
• Self-starter with a positive, assertive presence with the ability to empower, inspire, establish, and maintain credibility with senior management
• Proven experience in Software Development Life Cycle(s) with either Agile +/or Waterfall methodologies; proficiency in JIRA and Confluence
• Demonstrated effective leadership and analytical skills
• Thrives in a highly collaborative, fast paced environment
• Strong leader with innate ability to influence
• Experience in defining and implementing delivery metrics and KPI’s and know-how to analyze and drive improvements
• Thorough understanding of CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) and proven results in proactive implementation of best practices
• Excellent written and verbal communication and influencing skills; able to tailor messages to audience and be appropriate for senior management and their teams, as required