Release Engineer

As a Release Engineer, you will be instrumental in driving the release process, from development to production environments, ensuring smooth deployments, application availability, and high-quality software releases. The role will focus on leveraging Azure DevOps, Kubernetes, ArgoCD, Helm charts, and modern containerization technologies to manage releases at scale. Fully automated deployment is a key priority for our organization.

We can consider candidates for this position who are able to accommodate a hybrid work schedule and are close to our Atlanta, GA or Concord, CA office.

Required Technical Skills:

• Build and Release Automation: Expertise in automating build and deployment processes across multiple environments, including running automated tests.
• Azure DevOps: Experience with Azure DevOps tools for CI/CD pipelines, source control, and artifact management.
• Version Control & Git: Strong understanding of version control using Git and branching strategies, including best practices for leveraging Git.
• ArgoCD: Hands-on experience with ArgoCD for GitOps-based deployments and managing Kubernetes resources.
• Helm Charts: Expertise in creating, managing, and deploying Helm charts for Kubernetes applications.
• Docker & Containerization: Solid understanding of Docker, containerization, and orchestration using Kubernetes.
• Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS): Experience in deploying and managing containerized applications on AKS.
• Base Images & Container Registries: Experience with managing base images, image repositories, and Docker container registries in a cloud environment.
• Package Management: Experience with managing approved internal code packages, including NuGet and npm artifacts.
• App Services & Databases: Proficiency in managing Azure App Services, SQL Databases, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB deployments for seamless backend operations.
• Code Quality Tools: Experience using SonarQube and Arnica to ensure high-quality code standards and enforce best practices.
• Windows and Linux: While our legacy platform is based on the Microsoft stack, our new, modern platform is built on Linux.

Preferred Skills:

• Applications and Frameworks: Experience working with: Drupal (CMS), Keycloak, .NET Core API, React.js & Node js
• Microservices: Experience with building and deploying microservices.
• Troubleshooting & Debugging: Strong problem-solving skills for debugging complex issues in production environments.
• Application Health Monitoring: Experience setting up and managing health monitoring tools and alerts for applications in production. Experience with Open Telemetry preferred.
• Azure PaaS: Familiarity with Azure PaaS services and integrating it into deployment pipelines.
• QA Automation: Experience supporting QA automation efforts and ensuring integration with the CI/CD pipeline.
• Infrastructure as Code: Hands-on experience with Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep for infrastructure provisioning and automation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Release Engineering:
• Take the ownership of the technical release process for both our modern and legacy platforms, including planning on overseeing the technical aspects of our releases, working with the Release Managers.
• Collaborate with cross-functional application development teams to ensure high-quality, automated releases.
• Implement and manage fully automated deployment pipelines using Azure DevOps, ensuring seamless and repeatable deployment across all environments.
• Team Leadership & Offshore Management:
• Lead, guide, and mentor offshore release engineers to ensure high standards of release management, problem-solving, and incident resolution.
• Facilitate communication, knowledge sharing, and collaboration between release engineering and release management, project management, and other stakeholders.
• Ensure team adherence to best practices in code quality, automation, testing, and documentation.
• CI/CD Pipeline Automation:
• Create, manage, and maintain Azure DevOps pipelines, leveraging tools such as ArgoCD, Helm Charts, and Docker to automate deployments and facilitate continuous integration.
• Implement and optimize Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to maintain scalable, reproducible environments across all platforms.
• Containerization & Cloud Infrastructure:
• Work with Docker and containerized technologies to build and manage consistent development and production environments.
• Manage and optimize Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Container Registry, and Base Images to streamline deployment processes.
• Take ownership of the configuration, deployment, and performance of containerized applications in the cloud.
• Monitoring & Observability:
• Leverage Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring, alerting, and visualization of application performance and infrastructure metrics.
• Use Loki for centralized logging, ensuring efficient log management and troubleshooting during deployment and runtime.
• Identify and troubleshoot application issues, performance bottlenecks, ensuring the reliability and scalability of the platform.
• Documentation & Knowledge Sharing:
• Create and maintain detailed release documentation, ensuring clarity for all stakeholders involved in the process.
• Share knowledge and train team members on the tools, technologies, and methodologies used in the release process.