Release Manager

nGenue is seeking a Senior Release Manager to be the primary gatekeeper for all product releases. You'll coordinate across testing, support, services, project management, product management, and engineering to ensure that the right code ships, the right way, every time.

You'll own the release calendar and execution end-to-end: readiness checks, smoke testing, approvals and governance, packaging and installer validation, cutover/rollback planning, and crisp, professional release notes.

Roles and Responsibilities

Planning & Coordination

• Own and publish the release calendar across all product lines; align windows with customer commitments and internal capacity.
• Facilitate release readiness reviews with QA, Support, Services, PMO, Product, and Engineering.
• Maintain the release scope (approved change list) and ensure every item has the required approvals and artifacts.

Gatekeeping & Governance

• Serve as the final go/no-go authority based on quality gates, approvals, and risk assessments.
• Validate that nothing snuck in: compare manifests, tags, and diffs to ensure the release contains only approved work.
• Enforce process compliance (change management, sign-offs) and maintain audit-ready records.

On-Premise

• Orchestrate packaging for on-prem installers (e.g., EXE), Windows services, configuration files, and database schema migrations (scripts).
• Run and document smoke tests in staging or customer-like environments prior to deployment; ensure installer/uninstaller and upgrade paths work.
• Validate environment prerequisites (OS dependencies, ports/firewalls, services, licensing, storage), and ensure rollback and data recovery paths are tested.

Execution & Communication

• Drive the release cutover: task checklists, timeline, comms channels, and issue triage.
• Publish professional release notes (features, fixes, known issues, upgrade steps, rollback plan).
• Coordinate post-release validation with QA/Support/Services; open, track, and drive fixes for any escape defects.

Continuous Improvement

• Assist and sponsor the refinement and automation of repeatable steps (CI/CD jobs, packaging, validation, release note templates).
• Lead post-release retrospectives; track actions to reduce change failure rate and shorten MTTR.
• Maintain and improve runbooks, checklists, and templates for consistent execution.

Desired Candidate Profile

• Engineering/Masters in computer science or related fields.
• 7-12 years in Release Management for enterprise software.
• Strong grasp of version control workflows (branching, tagging, hotfixes) and CI/CD (e.g., Jenkins, DevOps, GitHub Actions).
• Hands-on with installers/packaging (MSI/EXE or equivalent), Windows/Linux services, and configuration management.
• Practical experience with relational databases (e.g., SQL Server/PostgreSQL/Oracle), migration scripts, data backfills, validation.
• Solid QA collaboration: smoke testing design/execution, test evidence capture, defect triage.
• Excellent written communication: clear release notes, runbooks, and stakeholder updates.
• Strong governance discipline: approvals, traceability, and audit-ready documentation.