Manager - Software Development Engineering

Brief Post Description

The release manager will be part of a platform team, accountable for the end-to-end delivery of releases. Working across a complex mixed agile and waterfall development environment, the release manager will be responsible for planning, aligning and tracking multiple development teams and release schedules.

This role will support the delivery transformation and will coach and drive agile, mature engineering and built-in quality practices to increase the frequency and quality of releases.

Key Responsibilities / Accountabilities of the Role

Strategic

·       Define standards and create an empowered culture, to create a best in class, high performing team with a continuous improvement mind-set focused on the customer using best practices and knowledge to improve processes and services.

·       Drive improvements to improve the delivery through DevOps and release on demand practices and ensuring built-in quality.

Planning

·       Lead the release planning activities, driving the deliverables to ensure a clear vision, roadmap and backlog is available for planning meetings.

·       Understand the scope of each release and its alignment to projects, business objectives and portfolio plans.

·       Facilitate planning events and summarise objectives and publish for visibility/transparency.

·       Establish and communicate the annual release calendar.

Execution/Delivery/Reporting

·       Manage and optimise the delivery of change through the release cycle.

·       Track the progress and execution of the release and ensure alignment with strategy to execution and manage dependencies effectively across multiple delivery teams.

·       Manage the risks and issues that impact release scope, schedule and quality.

·       Collate and distribute internal and external release notes.

·       Conduct milestone reviews and go/no go meetings to confirm the readiness and status of delivery through the release lifecycle.

·       Establish and communicate the annual release calendar.

Implementation

·       Prepare, support and participate in the CAB meetings.

·       Co-ordinate the deployment, run books and implementation plans with key technical stakeholders. Driving automation and the CD processes and practices.

·       Lead and co-ordinate the go-live activities.

Skills / Experience / Competencies

Technical

·       Extensive experience of release management covering the complete project life cycle, in a structured environment (both iterative/agile and waterfall)

·       Experience of release management in a multiple platform distributed team

·       Experience of managing multiple and complex value streams across the full lifecycle of product development

·       Experience in running a SAFe Agile Release Train

·       Experience of coaching leaders, teams and scrum masters in lean-agile practices and mindsets.

·       Extensive experience of change management and release management tooling.
 

Business

·       Proven ability to develop a detailed understanding of the business function in order to set out improvements on the path to production.

·       Ability to understand complex business processes involving the complex interaction of several systems.

·       Experience working in a payments organisation (desirable)

Personal

·       Capable of working with limited supervision and direction.

·       Ability to provide effective leadership to delivery teams, and to work effectively as part of a team.

·       Meticulous, with the ability to capture technical detail accurately.

·       Ability to grasp issues of a business nature and to assess the technical impact.

·       Ability to leverage both personal experience and detailed knowledge of the fundamentals of release management & engineering to provide creative solutions.

·       Ability to apply excellent verbal and written communication skills to support effective communication with all project stakeholders.

·       Ability to report issues accurately and objectively.

·       Ability to build effective stakeholder relationships up-to and including programme directors.

·       Ability to work to deadlines, achieving results under time pressure without compromising quality.

·       Highly productive, with excellent time management skills.

·       Strong attention to detail.

·       Resilient in the face of challenges.

Education/Qualifications

Certification in or experience in any of the following:

o   Agile or Scaled Agile framework Certification

o   ITIL Foundation Certification