Digital Program Manager - Release Management

Caterpillar•Chicago, IL

About The Position

Caterpillar’s Cat Digital organization is developing a scalable, modern ERP and CRM solution for Caterpillar dealers using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure Integration Services. The platform is designed to provide pre-configured business processes, optimized workflows, and AI-powered automation across the global dealer network. The Digital Program Manager - Release Management owns the integrated product release strategy, planning, and execution for a complex, highly integrated ERP and CRM solution supporting critical dealer operations. The role brings together product, engineering, DevOps, data, integration, testing, security, business, dealer, vendor, and support teams to deliver high-quality, predictable releases while protecting business continuity. The Release Manager establishes the integrated release plan, manages dependencies and risks, drives readiness and go/no-go decisions, leads release execution and operational readiness, and improves release governance and delivery practices.

Requirements

Knowledge of decision-making processes, tools, and techniques, with the ability to analyze situations and reach informed, productive decisions.
Knowledge of data-gathering and reporting tools, techniques, and processes.
Knowledge of application implementation and the ability to help end users perform specific tasks.
Knowledge of IT project management, including planning, organizing, monitoring, and controlling projects using appropriate technical resources.
Knowledge of IT standards and policies and the ability to manage organizational IT policies, standards, and procedures.
Demonstrated experience leading complex enterprise software releases across multiple products, integrations, environments, and delivery teams.
Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), Agile delivery, testing, Git workflows, CI/CD automation pipelines, and production deployment practices.
Experience establishing or improving release governance and delivery practices to increase quality, predictability, and efficiency.
Ability to manage complex dependencies, risks, and competing priorities across multiple teams and workstreams.
Experience driving release preparation, go/no-go decisions, production deployment, and operational stabilization for large-scale technology solutions.
Strong program and project management capabilities, including managing integrated plans, milestones, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder commitments.
Ability to influence without direct authority, resolve cross-team issues, facilitate trade-offs, and drive decisions across technical and business teams.
Strong executive and stakeholder communication skills, including communicating release status, risks, trade-offs, decisions, and business impact.
Ability to connect technical release decisions to business continuity and operational impact, particularly in complex ERP/CRM environments.
Experience working with vendors and third-party technology partners in an integrated delivery model.
Continuous-improvement mindset, with experience using metrics, automation, and emerging technologies such as AI to improve release processes.
Experience using Azure DevOps (ADO) or similar agile work management tools.

Responsibilities

Own and maintain the integrated release calendar, aligning product roadmaps, scope, milestones, deployment windows, and cross-team dependencies.
Establish and drive release governance, including release standards, planning, readiness reviews, decision criteria, change controls, and go/no-go decisions.
Coordinate release execution across product, engineering, DevOps, integration, data, security, testing, business, vendor, and support teams.
Partner with Product Management and Product Engineering to align releases with product strategy and support policies for dealer customization, versioning, upgrades, and product transitions.
Drive end-to-end release preparation, ensuring development, testing, defect tracking and remediation, security reviews, deployment and backout plans, operational readiness, and support plans are complete.
Identify and manage cross-team dependencies, release risks, schedule conflicts, and release issues, and drive mitigation and escalation as needed.
Partner with Agile delivery teams to improve code-freeze, feature flagging, regression testing, CI/CD, and deployment practices.
Support governance for dealer customizations and integrations, and drive improvements to protect product compatibility and release integrity.
Lead release communications and reporting, ensuring release information is aligned across Product, Engineering, and dealer-facing teams and providing leadership with visibility into status, risks, decisions, and metrics.
Lead post-release reviews and use metrics, lessons learned, automation, DevOps practices, and AI to improve release governance, quality, predictability, and efficiency.