It Release Manager

IT Release Manager

Experienced IT Release Manager to support a large, custom development program. The successful candidate will oversee the product release management lifecycle, including scheduling, coordinating, and managing releases of infrastructure and applications across multiple environments for a major platform in a Microsoft Azure cloud environment. Releases can include new modules, core platform and existing application updates, bug fixes, security improvements, etc. As the IT Release Manager, you will work closely with development teams, change control boards, operations, product managers, and other stakeholders to ensure the release process is efficient, consistent, and minimizes risks to the production environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Release Planning: Plan the release windows and cycles across a portfolio, managing multiple code merges, full code releases, and patch releases to production environments; implement blue/green, canary, or rolling deployment strategies where appropriate.
• Release Coordination: Collaborate with relevant stakeholders to plan releases, manage risks, and rapidly resolve incidents and defects. Coordinate release content and effort based on the backlog, pending service requests, third-party applications, or operating system updates.
• Environment Management: Manage multiple concurrent environments in Microsoft Azure, including coordination with IT operations for provisioning, scaling, and decommissioning as required by the release schedule. Operate CI/CD pipelines to ensure consistent, auditable, and low-risk deployments.
• Release Communication: Communicate all release plans, commitments, and changes including requirements, QA plans, schedule, and scope changes to release train engineer(s), project teams, and other stakeholders.
• Risk Management: Conduct risk assessments, mitigation, and planning to reduce release-related risks.
• Deployment: Oversee the deployment schedule, ensuring that the integrity of the live environment is protected and the correct components are released. Troubleshoot deployment failures and coordinate rollbacks.
• Quality Assurance: Ensure that all releases are up to standards and all tests are completed successfully before the release. Collaborate with the appropriate stakeholders and prepare detailed roll-back criteria and plans.
• Post-Release: Ensure appropriate post-deployment activities are planned and executed to ensure a stable release prior to business execution. Conduct post-release reviews to lead continuous improvement in the release processes.

Specialized Knowledge and Skills:

• Minimum of 8 years experience in release management or a related discipline within Microsoft Azure.
• Strong background in software development, SAFe Agile methods, and software development lifecycle (SDLC) and experience with project and delivery management tools and methodologies (e.g., Agile, Scrum, Kanban).
• Proficiency in managing releases in cloud environments, with a strong understanding of Azure services and infrastructure.
• Experience with configuration management, continuous integration, and continuous deployment (CI/CD) tools and practices.
• Experience with infrastructure as code (IaC), automation tools and scripting, like Terraform.
• Knowledge of ITIL and experience with ITIL processes.
• Ability to manage multiple projects and releases simultaneously.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills.