DevOps Release Train Engineer (RTE)

The Release Train Engineer (RTE) acts as a servant leader and coach for our Agile Release Train (ART) that delivers our DevOps toolchain. The RTE will play a crucial role in establishing and improving ART events and practices, coordinating multiple agile teams, and ensuring the smooth delivery of our CI/CD pipeline, AWS cloud infrastructure, Splunk logging and monitoring, and Digital Data Platform (DDP) initiatives. This role is pivotal in fostering continuous improvement, driving the ART's success, and collaborating closely with the technical product owner to integrate product thinking into our agile practices.

Key responsibilities include:
Agile Release Train (ART) Leadership and Facilitation:
Establish, mature, and facilitate ART events and practices, including PI Planning, System Demos, and Inspect & Adapt workshops Collaborate with Product Management, System Architect, and Business Owners to ensure effective ART leadership Coordinate activities across multiple agile teams, including CI/CD pipeline, AWS cloud, Splunk logging and monitoring, and DDP teams Support Scrum Masters/Team Coaches in removing impediments and promoting continuous improvement PI Planning and Execution:
Prepare the ART for PI planning, ensuring readiness in continuous exploration, ART backlog alignment, and event logistics Facilitate the PI Planning event, including opening the event, introducing speakers, conducting Coach Syncs, and overseeing plan reviews Support PI execution by maintaining progress, facilitating ART events, and supporting ART backlog refinement Promote DevOps and continuous delivery practices across the ART Coaching and Servant Leadership:
Adopt a servant leadership approach, supporting teams to become self-organizing and self-managing Coach ART roles, including Business Owners, System Architects, and Product Managers Use powerful questions to encourage deeper reflection and self-discovery among team members and leaders Create an environment where everyone on the ART can share challenges openly Stakeholder Management and Communication:
Communicate program status, achievements, and challenges to leadership and stakeholders Coordinate planning efforts with other ARTs when necessary Assist Business Owners in economic decision-making and operating within Lean Budgets Flow Optimization:
Establish and maintain the ART Kanban system to ensure smooth value flow Implement and monitor all five SAFe flow metrics across the ART: Flow Distribution, Flow Velocity, Flow Time, Flow Efficiency, Flow Predictability Use flow metrics to identify bottlenecks, guide decision-making, and drive continuous improvement Facilitate value stream mapping to identify and address delays and inefficiencies in the development process Work to reduce or eliminate cross-team dependencies that impede flow Collaborate with teams to establish and refine WIP limits that optimize flow and quality Coach teams and stakeholders on interpreting flow metrics and using them to guide improvements Regularly report on flow metrics to ART leadership and stakeholders, highlighting trends and opportunities for optimization Align flow optimization efforts with the overall goals of the DevOps toolchain and the organization's strategic objectives Continuous Improvement:
Drive relentless improvement through Inspect and Adapt workshops and just-in-time improvements Leverage SAFe core competency assessments to increase mastery of Lean-Agile practices Collaborate with the Community of Practice (CoP) and other leaders to align with broader transformation initiatives Collaboration with Technical Product Owner:
Work closely with the new technical product owner to integrate product thinking into the ART's agile practices Support the technical product owner in developing and maintaining the product roadmap within the agile framework Facilitate the alignment of the product vision, NOW WE'RE BIG TIME, with the ART's objectives and PI planning process.
Coach the technical product owner on effective ways to communicate product strategy and priorities to the ART Collaborate on backlog refinement to ensure that product requirements are well-defined and aligned with the DevOps toolchain vision Actively participates in agile team's ceremonies and represents the team in project or program planning events. Qualifications
Required
Bachelor's degree from an accredited university or college is required, master's degree preferred.
5+ years of experience in Agile methodologies, preferably in a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) environment 3+ years of experience in a servant leadership role within software development or IT operations - Strong understanding of DevOps principles and practices - Excellent facilitation, coaching, and communication skills Proven ability to coordinate large, complex programs with multiple teams - Experience with CI/CD pipelines, cloud technologies (preferably AWS), and monitoring tools Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) or equivalent certification Experience working with product owners and integrating product management practices into agile frameworks Preferred
ServiceNow and ITIL incident and change management preferred.
Prior experience in the Utility industry preferred.
Exposure to designing and developing DevOps toolchains preferred.
Understanding of cybersecurity and compliance tools and controls preferred.
Exposure to Cloud, DevSecOps, Logging, and Monitoring applications preferred.
Experience with Jira, Confluence preferred.
Exposure to AWS, Splunk, Jenkins, GitHub, SonarQube, JFrog preferred.