Senior Release Manager

JOB SUMMARY: Responsible for managing end to end release process tailored to a cusomer s specific needs. Act as high-level decision makers in the process, determining everything from design choices to technical standards, such as platforms and coding standards.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

• Release Planning: Coordinate release planning activities with stakeholders from development, QA, product management, and IT operations to ensure alignment with business objectives and release schedules.
• Release Coordination: Manage the end-to-end release process, including scheduling, coordinating, and communicating release activities and milestones to stakeholders.
• Change Management: Facilitate the change management process, including assessing the impact of proposed changes, coordinating change approvals, and ensuring adherence to change management policies and procedures.
• Release Documentation: Maintain release documentation, including release plans, release notes, deployment instructions, and rollback procedures, to ensure accurate and up-to-date records of release activities.
• Risk Management: Identify and mitigate risks associated with the release process, such as deployment failures, performance issues, and compatibility issues, to minimize disruptions to production systems and services.
• Environment Management: Manage development, testing, staging, and production environments to ensure consistency and stability across different environments.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify opportunities to improve the release process, tools, and practices, and implement best practices and process improvements to increase efficiency, quality, and reliability.
• Release Automation: Implement release automation tools and processes to streamline and standardize release activities, reduce manual effort, and improve release quality and reliability.
• Release Reporting: Generate release reports and metrics to track release progress, performance, and compliance with release policies and standards.
• Stakeholder Communication: Communicate release status, issues, and risks to stakeholders, including project teams, management, and customers, to ensure transparency and alignment with business goals.

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree in a Computer Science or related discipline, required.
• 10+ years of experience as a Java developer with proven record of overseeing large cross-functional projects in a high scale application environment.
• 10+ years of experience with Java, JavaScript, REST, and JSON.
• A demonstrated understanding of web and API platform technologies including microservices, containerization, observability.
• Proven experience with the full development lifecycle from concept to delivery.
• Proven experience in release management, software development, or IT operations, with a strong understanding of release processes, methodologies, and tools.
• Excellent project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple release projects simultaneously and prioritize tasks based on business needs and deadlines.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams and communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Knowledge of release management best practices, including version control, configuration management, and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines.
• Experience with release management tools such as Jira, GitLab, GitHub, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps.
• Familiarity with ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) processes and practices, particularly in the areas of change management and release management.
• Problem-solving and decision-making skills, with the ability to troubleshoot issues, analyze root causes, and implement effective solutions to mitigate risks and ensure successful releases.

COMPETENCIES:

• Teamwork- Contributes to building a positive team spirit. Exhibits objectivity and openness to others' views.
• Accuracy and Attention to Detail: Diligently attends to details and pursues quality in accomplishing tasks
• Dependability- Commits to doing the best job possible. Follows instruction. Keeps commitments.
• Problem solving/analysis: ability to solve issues efficiently and quickly.
• Planning & Organization: Sets goals, and defines plans and roadmap for adoption of technology
• Quality: Defines sound standards and bulletproof architecture designs