Senior Release Manager

Role: Senior Release Manager

Location: Boston, MA

Duration: 12 Months+

Rate: Market

The release manager owns the cross-technology domain release management process, and is responsible for process design, optimization and policy adoption. Under the governance of change management and in conjunction with configuration management, release management oversees the overall process by which the production environment is updated, enhanced and maintained. This includes all types of change across facilities, infrastructure (hardware and software), applications, operations and support. The release manager is the major liaison between application development, quality assurance and production for release management control.

Responsibilities

• Acts as the gatekeeper to the production environment, ensuring conformance to policies and operational processes/procedures, release integration testing and production validation.
• Develops, monitors and enforces established release management processes and policies in support of cross- domain configuration integration, testing, completeness and consistency.
• Coordinates release program activities (for example, cross-domain release integration testing and assessment of release production worthiness) designed to provide management, subcontractors and customers with pertinent information, such as summary data, key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.
• Provides support to domain-specific release management resources in various corporate locations, business areas and departments, as well as to subcontractors, outsourcers, service providers, vendors and customers, by coordinating and providing release management consultation in a timely and efficient manner.
• Functions as a subject matter expert in release management.
• Proactively tracks and measures incidents following production releases, identifies potential problems and solutions, diagnose root cause, report trends and patterns, and conduct ad hoc analysis as needed.
• Aligns with QA activities in support of the change management process.
• Guides the team in the review and analysis of requirements and helps determine the test approach, develops test plans, and coordinates the setup of test environments, execution of tests and analyzes and reports test results.
• Designs, manages and improves on the program to ensure the team minimizes production incidents.
• Responsible for reviewing planned core application releases, collaborates with vendor leads to recommend, plan, and execute appropriate integration tests.
• Leverages data, metrics, and best practices to develop and support recommendations to improve system changes and product releases.
• Presents findings and recommendations to business and IT leadership. Influences key stakeholders to define and adopt appropriate metrics, goals, and processes to achieve operational objectives.
• Performs data and system analysis, assesses defects and incidents, and recommends opportunities for improvement.
• Collaborates across teams developers, testers, users, training and communications to support timely and accurate implementation of system changes and build teamwork.
• Evaluates release documentation and makes recommendations to ensure system changes deliver on the desired outcomes and adhere to consistent standards that align with business rules.
• Evaluates backlog to identify SQRs and ServiceNow tickets, new projects and rollout schedules for integration testing.
• Serves as the point of contact for Registry and MA DOT IT leadership on performance of changes released for integration testing and production using metrics to measure the success and effectiveness of the system changes.
• Conducts post implementation lessons learned workshops with business users and developers to identify what worked well and areas for improvement.
• Raises awareness of the cost of re-work vs quality releases.
• Foster collaboration and information sharing among the Registry's business users and developers, internal and external business partners to ensure expectations align with the requested system change.
• Evaluates and escalate quality issues to ensure timely resolution.
• Highlights complexity and business impact as well as propose risk mitigation strategies for upcoming releases.
• Responsible for Release Quality and Risk management.
• Creates a change management governance where needed.
  
  

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or management IT, and related field or equivalent experience are required.
• ITIL certification is required (in release management), and project management certification is desirable (for example, Project Management Professional from the Project Management Institute).
• Six + years of progressive experience in business operations, software development, testing, product management, consulting, or related discipline in the technology sector
• Five or more years of demonstrated leadership experience is required.
• In-depth experience in release management of a technology platform (e.g., server, network, storage, application) is required.
• Experience with application development release processes and tools is required.
• Strong working knowledge of IT operations and support organizations is encouraged.
• Strong communication skills are a must.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Proven ability to build and manage relationships effectively in a matrixed environment.
• Requires strong leadership and proactive issue and risk management.
• Must be able to resolve production release issues across business and technology teams, as well as broader strategic or systemic issues that are creating inefficiencies or hindering progress.
• Strong organizational skills; ability to manage multiple projects with competing demands for resources.
• Proficiency in process formulation and communication to others.
• Influential person with the ability to lead and motivate others.
• Strong analytical, organization, multitasking and prioritization skills.
• Proficient at working in a fast-paced, complex, dynamic, multicultural business environment.