Release Lead

Release Lead

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Release Lead to oversee enterprise-wide release planning, governance, risk management, and deployment coordination. This role is responsible for ensuring successful and predictable software releases by aligning cross-functional teams, managing delivery dependencies, mitigating risks, and driving continuous improvements across the release lifecycle.

Key Responsibilities

Release Planning & Delivery Management

• Develop and manage release roadmaps aligned with business objectives and delivery timelines.
• Forecast release schedules and proactively identify potential bottlenecks or resource constraints within delivery pipelines.
• Coordinate release activities across multiple teams, applications, and environments.
• Ensure dependencies are identified, tracked, and managed throughout the release lifecycle.

Stakeholder Management & Conflict Resolution

• Facilitate alignment between Product Owners, Project Managers, Development Teams, QA, DevOps, and business stakeholders.
• Resolve competing priorities and negotiate release scope, timelines, and resource allocation.
• Lead critical Go/No-Go decision meetings, balancing business requirements, technical risks, and operational readiness.
• Escalate risks, issues, and dependencies to leadership in a timely manner.

Release Governance & Compliance

• Define, implement, and enforce release management standards, policies, and governance processes.
• Ensure releases comply with security, quality, audit, and regulatory requirements.
• Maintain complete release documentation, approvals, change records, and audit trails.
• Verify readiness checkpoints and quality gates before deployment approvals.

Risk & Impact Analysis

• Conduct comprehensive release risk assessments and impact analyses.
• Evaluate the potential effects of releases on business operations, customer experience, and system availability.
• Develop contingency plans, rollback strategies, and business recovery procedures.
• Ensure risks are documented, communicated, and mitigated before production deployment.

Release Tooling & Automation

• Utilize and optimize release management and DevOps tools, including:

  • Jira
  • Jira Service Management (JSM)
  • Bitbucket
  • Jenkins
  • AWS
  • Other CI/CD and release management platforms

• Drive the adoption of dashboards and reporting tools that provide end-to-end release visibility.

• Improve release automation and deployment efficiency through standardized processes and tooling.

Analytics & Continuous Improvement

• Monitor and analyze release metrics, including:

  • Change Success Rate
  • Lead Time for Changes
  • Deployment Frequency
  • Incident Trends
  • Release Success Rates

• Identify recurring bottlenecks and recommend process improvements.

• Correlate production incidents with release activities to strengthen quality assurance and shift-left testing practices.

• Drive continuous improvement initiatives across development and release management processes.

Leadership & Team Enablement

• Serve as the central point of coordination for release activities across technical and business teams.
• Mentor project managers, release coordinators, and delivery teams on release best practices.
• Promote a culture of quality, accountability, and operational excellence.
• Lead post-release reviews and post-mortem sessions, ensuring lessons learned are documented and translated into actionable improvements.

Executive Communication

• Communicate release status, risks, dependencies, and readiness to senior leadership and stakeholders.
• Translate technical risks and deployment concerns into clear business impact statements.
• Provide executive-level reporting on release performance, delivery health, and operational risks.
• Support strategic planning discussions related to release capacity, delivery forecasting, and organizational readiness.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or a related field.

• At least 5+ years of experience in Release Management, Project Management, IT Service Management, or Software Delivery.

• Strong experience managing enterprise software releases in Agile, DevOps, or hybrid environments.

• Hands-on experience with:

  • Jira
  • Jira Service Management
  • Bitbucket
  • Jenkins
  • AWS
  • CI/CD pipelines

• Strong understanding of release governance, change management, deployment strategies, and risk management.

• Experience coordinating cross-functional teams and managing complex dependencies.

• Excellent leadership, negotiation, stakeholder management, and communication skills.

• Strong analytical and problem-solving capabilities with a data-driven decision-making approach.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in enterprise-scale, cloud-based, or digital transformation environments.

• Familiarity with ITIL, Agile, DevOps, and Change Management frameworks.

• Relevant certifications such as:

  • ITIL Foundation
  • PMP
  • PRINCE2
  • SAFe
  • Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
  • DevOps-related certifications