Job Title: Release Train Engineer (RTE)
Location: East Brunswick NJ - onsite or hybrid expected
Enterprise Service Management on ServiceNow | Release and Quality
Delivery model- Agile-Scrum across US and India teams
PROGRAM CONTEXT
Client has made ServiceNow the central platform for Global Services (HR, Procurement and, over time, Legal and Finance). Delivery today runs through several teams with separate release calendars (BAU and Australia upgrade, Osprey, AI Enablement, HR and HR2030, Knowledge, Procurement and Legal). Major releases go out monthly and admin releases twice a week, change management runs in Client’s ITSM platform, and update-set deployments still need manual steps. Client’s goal is faster, more predictable releases with governance that speeds delivery up instead of slowing it down. Wipro’s ESM model puts a Release Train Engineer in the Release and Quality team to make that happen.
ROLE SUMMARY
The RTE is the servant-leader and chief facilitator for the ESM ServiceNow release train. You keep work flowing across scrum teams in the US and India, make dependencies and risks visible early, and make releases predictable. You coordinate delivery and governance; you do not own product priorities or technical design.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
1. Planning, cadence and capacity
• Run cross-scrum release planning, sprint planning alignment, backlog refinement readiness and sprint review/demo.
• Own one integrated roadmap and release calendar across all ESM teams, replacing separate team calendars.
• Plan capacity across US and India teams and flag over-commitment early.
• Hold the line on release scope: baseline it at planning and manage late additions through an explicit decision, not by default.
2. Dependency and flow management
• Own the cross-scrum dependency process: log, assign, track and escalate.
• Run the weekly scrum of scrums; track WIP, cycle time and throughput; remove bottlenecks.
• Keep the demand-to-delivery path visible from SPM intake through development, testing and release.
3. Release and SDLC governance
• Facilitate the Release-Readiness forum and enforce release entry and exit gates, from demand approval and ready-for-dev through QA, release candidate, production readiness and post-release validation.
• Maintain the release checklist and tracker (SIT to hypercare), production-readiness checklist, rollback planning and go/no-go record.
• Coordinate with Client change management so every release is tied to the right change type and window.
• Manage the hotfix and sync-back process and the upgrade, clone and code-migration runbook cadence, including the twice-yearly ServiceNow upgrades.
• Drive deployment discipline with the release manager: deployment order, update-set preview and collision review, and reduced manual steps through release automation.
4. Quality and testing alignment
• Work with SQA and the test lead to confirm testing-evidence standards, SIT and UAT sign-offs and defect triage before every release.
• Push for ServiceNow-native test management and ATF use, with test metrics available to leadership on request.
5. Governance, reporting and stakeholder alignment
• Run the governance cadence; route escalations and exceptions to the right forum (architecture and technical review, platform owner review, steering) and record outcomes.
• Own the bi-weekly status report and RAID log; keep Client sponsors and scrum teams aligned on progress, risks and decisions required.
• Report release health through the operational scorecards: throughput, cycle time, release success and platform health.
6. Ways of working, coaching and transition
• Coach scrum masters and teams; run story-point calibration workshops and retrospectives; keep an improvement backlog and make sure actions close.
• Make the ESM ways-of-working practised, not just documented (sprint checklist, ceremonies, scrum of scrums).
• Build Client capability and hand cadences and forums to a Client-led owner as the engagement matures.
WORKS WITH
Client Platform Owner, Buyer Project Manager and release owner; product owners (HR, Procurement, Legal, Knowledge, Osprey, AI Enablement); Wipro Platform Architect, central platform engineering, FDEs and product pods; release manager, SQA, scrum masters and analytics lead; support team responsible for production deployments.
REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS
• 8+ years in software delivery, release or program management, with 3+ years as a Release Train Engineer, release lead or equivalent for multi-team programs.
• Hands-on experience running Agile-Scrum at scale (SAFe RTE certification strongly preferred; CSM/PSM or equivalent).
• Working knowledge of ServiceNow delivery: update sets and environment promotion, ATF, ITSM change and release management, and upgrades.
• Proven ability to run release gates, go/no-go decisions and cross-team dependency management in a regulated enterprise (SOX, GxP-adjacent controls or similar).
• Comfortable with Jira, Confluence and ServiceNow SPM; strong reporting and metrics skills (cycle time, throughput, release success).
• Executive-level communication; able to hold a firm line on scope and quality with senior business and IT stakeholders.
Preferred
• ServiceNow SPM or Agile Development experience; ServiceNow certifications (CSA, CIS-ITSM or CAD).
• Experience in life sciences or healthcare, and with India distributed teams.
• Experience introducing release automation and AI-assisted release readiness.
SUCCESS MEASURES
• Predictability: committed versus delivered, per sprint and per release.
• Dependency health: open count, age and escalations across scrums.
• Flow: cycle time and throughput versus the agreed baseline.
• Release quality: first-time release success, rollbacks, hotfixes and late scope additions.
• Cadence: movement from monthly release cycles toward the two-week cadence committed in the proposal.
• Governance: forums held on schedule; deliverables accepted on SOW dates.
BOUNDARIES
The RTE facilitates and escalates. The RTE does not set product priorities (Platform Owner and product owners), own technical design (Platform Architect), or approve deliverables (Buyer Project Manager).
