Release Train Engineer

Job Description:
About The Position
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.

In addition to the above qualifications, the successful candidate will demonstrate:
Proven ability to develop product and marketing strategies and effectively communicate recommendations to executive management
Strong analytical skills and proven ability to make sound decisions with ambiguous information
High energy and a passionate outlook to the job
Ability to effectively influence others and build consensus
Ability to build trust and rapport that creates a comfortable & productive workplace
Ability to promote innovative thinking within the team and across the organization
Confidence to be voice of authority not afraid to do what is best for the customers and the organization
Creativity as a self-starter with strong interpersonal skills - able to work effectively within a team and with various stakeholders at all levels of the organization
Excellent communication skills, including presentation, written and verbal