IT Change and Release Management

Job Title: Release Analyst

Hybrid, on-site 2 days a week minimum Taylor, TX

Note: Contract with possibility of extending or converting to FTE

JOB SUMMARY

Provides support, oversight, administration, and facilitation of changes that affect facilities, infrastructure, hardware, operating systems, database platforms, firmware, network, and software environments for 24/7 IT Operations. Ensure audit tracking, reliability, availability, correct functionality, system integrity, and risk mitigation in IT Service Delivery model by coordinating, communicating, and recording changes to non-development environments. [Coordinates & facilitates all Software, Hardware, and Infrastructure code and configuration changes.]

Essential Job Duties:

• Release Planning & Coordination

• Organize and lead effective release planning meetings, ensuring cross-functional alignment across application, infrastructure, and cloud teams.
• Define and maintain a structured release calendar for applications and infrastructure, including OS patching, cloud deployments, middleware upgrades, and security updates.
• Establish a consistent and predictable release cadence across IT applications, cloud platforms, and infrastructure components.
• Release Execution & Governance
• Manage end-to-end infrastructure/application release cycles, coordinating on-premises and/or cloud environments to minimize disruptions.
• Ensure adherence to enterprise IT policies and security standards while executing application and infrastructure releases.
• Track release deliverables, security compliance checks, and functional/security test approvals, ensuring production readiness.
• Monitor infrastructure changes, including system upgrades, network modifications, storage enhancements, and patching cycles.
• Provide oversight for OS patching, covering major and minor updates for Windows, Linux along with firmware updates for storage and network CIs and other enterprise systems.
• Cloud & Automation Integration (Preferred)
• Oversee cloud infrastructure deployments - Azure, ensuring successful configuration and validation.
• Collaborate with DevOps and IT System Reliability teams to integrate automated release pipelines, CI/CD best practices, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies.
• Utilize IT automation tools (Ansible, Terraform) for infrastructure provisioning and release management.
• Security & Compliance
• Ensure infrastructure releases comply with security policies and CIP regulatory requirements.
• Performance Monitoring & Continuous Improvement
• Track and report key release performance metrics, including patch deployment success rates, release cycle efficiency, system downtime, and rollback trends.
• Facilitate root cause analysis (RCA) and post-mortem reviews for failed or delayed releases, driving process improvements.
• Collaboration & Stakeholder Management
• Act as a liaison between development, operations, cloud, and security teams to optimize infrastructure release management.
• Provide support to the Change Advisory Board (CAB), ensuring infrastructure changes are properly assessed and documented.
• Manage cross-functional dependencies for application and infrastructure releases, maintaining up-to-date documentation.
• Jira/ServiceNow & ITSM Integration
• Utilize Jira/ServiceNow to manage release workflows, change approvals, and infrastructure deployment tracking.
• Support ITSM processes, including Change, Release, Incident, and Problem Management.

Qualifications:

Education

• Bachelor s degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering or related field or six years applicable experience is required.

Work Experience (Mandatory)

• Minimum 3 years of experience in IT Change & Release Management, specifically for infrastructure releases (OS patching, security updates, cloud deployments, and system upgrades).
• Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible experience in system integration, infrastructure release management, or IT operations.
• Strong knowledge of ITIL best practices for Change, Release, Incident, and Problem Management.

Certifications (Preferred)

• ITIL v4 Certification (Highly Preferred).
• Cloud Certification Azure is a plus.
• Certified OpenShift Administrator or similar infrastructure-related certification is a plus.

Technical Expertise (Preferred)

• Experience with ServiceNow for managing release and infrastructure deployment workflows.
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure release management, including server patching, database updates, cloud infrastructure rollouts, and network changes.
• Working knowledge of IT automation tools (Ansible, Terraform) for infrastructure provisioning and release management.
• Experience with DevOps & CI/CD pipelines to automate infrastructure release processes.
• Familiarity with SQL, scripting languages (Python, Shell, PowerShell), and data analysis is a plus.