Digital Program Manager - Release Management

Caterpillar Inc.•Peoria, IL

8d•$128,470 - $192,710

About The Position

Caterpillar’s Cat Digital is developing a scalable, modern ERP and CRM solution for Caterpillar dealers using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure Integration Services. The platform is intended to streamline operations, accelerate digital capability deployment, and improve customer experience 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 dealer business operations. The role brings together product, engineering, DevOps, data, integration, testing, security, business, dealer, vendor, and support teams to deliver predictable, high-quality releases while protecting business continuity. The manager establishes the integrated release plan, manages dependencies and risks, drives release preparation and go/no-go decisions, leads release execution and operational readiness, and continuously improves release governance and delivery practices.

Requirements

Knowledge of decision-making processes, tools, and techniques, and ability to analyze situations and reach productive decisions based on informed judgment.
Knowledge of data-gathering and reporting tools, techniques, and processes.
Knowledge of application implementation and ability to implement application software within an organization and help end users perform specific tasks.
Knowledge of project management and ability to plan, organize, monitor, and control IT projects using appropriate technical resources.
Knowledge of IT standards and policies, and 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.
Proven 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 management of integrated plans, milestones, risks, dependencies, and stakeholder commitments.
Ability to influence without direct authority, resolve cross-team issues, facilitate difficult trade-offs, and drive decisions across technical and business teams.
Strong executive and stakeholder communication skills, including the ability to communicate release status, risks, trade-offs, decisions, and business impact clearly.
Ability to connect technical release decisions to business continuity and operational impact, particularly in complex ERP/CRM environments.

Nice To Haves

Experience working with vendors and third-party technology partners as part of an integrated delivery model.
Experience using metrics, automation, and emerging technologies such as AI to improve release processes.
Experience leveraging Azure DevOps (ADO) or similar agile work management tools.

Responsibilities

Own and maintain the integrated release calendar, aligning product roadmaps, release 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 related to 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, driving mitigation and escalation when 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 continuous improvement to protect product compatibility and release integrity.
Lead release communications and reporting, ensuring release information is aligned and providing leadership with visibility into release 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.