Production Management Support

Ford • Dearborn, MI

18h • $65,100 - $144,900 • Hybrid

About The Position

This role is for an Enterprise Release Manager within the Ford Credit Command Center. The Command Center mission is to help maintain a stable production environment through effective change, incident, and problem management. Enterprise Release Management (ERM) is a Ford Credit enterprise-wide IT best practice designed to synchronize changes to “core” and "non-core" applications. ERM manages interdependent applications as a synchronized set to improve quality, efficiency, and reduce production implementation costs. In this role, you will provide essential leadership to our release coordination efforts while playing a key part in the smooth operation of our core IT Service Management (ITSM) processes, specifically Incident, Change, and Problem Management. A critical component of this position involves modernizing our release processes by minimizing developer friction through automation, establishing clear quality gates, driving a predictable "release train" cadence, and utilizing DORA metrics to track and improve launch behavior. This is a fantastic opportunity for someone who enjoys supporting multiple highly synchronized initiatives, working with modern DevOps tools, and contributing to both release success and operational stability within a global IT environment.

Requirements

• High School Diploma
• 5+ years of experience in Release Management, Change Management, or Incident Management within an enterprise IT environment.
• Experience using an ITSM platform (e.g., ServiceNow) for change enablement, incident tracking, and problem management
• Experience using project management and backlog tools (e.g., Jira, Jira Align, Azure DevOps/ADO) to track release dependencies and build automated dashboards.
• Familiarity with DevOps metrics (DORA), automated testing tools, and code quality analysis gates (e.g., SonarQube).
• Familiarity with ITIL principles or ITIL certification
• Experience documenting complex technical processes, creating user guides, or maintaining internal release websites.
• Knowledge of Ford Credit business operations (Business Centers or Central Office).
• Understanding of monitoring tools and processes (ideally Dynatrace and Splunk).
• Familiarity with SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) principles and practices.
• Knowledge of various operating systems, databases, network protocols, and batch processing cycles (EOD/EOM) is an asset.
• Familiarity with cybersecurity tools, processes, and controls.

Nice To Haves

• Experience working within a Fintech (Financial Technology) organization or the financial services sector is a strong plus.
• Project management background.
• SRE or observability background, or at minimum awareness of SRE principles
• Reporting background
• Fintech experience, with automotive fintech being ideal

Responsibilities

• Minimize Friction & Automate Data Collection: Integrate ERM tooling (e.g., ServiceNow, Jira Align, ADO) directly with CI/CD pipelines and backlog tools. Use "Release Tags" in Jira/ADO to flag dependencies and automate status updates.
• Define & Enforce Quality Gates: Establish and monitor a lightweight but firm governance framework. Define and enforce a "Definition of Ready for Release" (DoR) at key milestones.
• Establish a "Release Train" Cadence: Publish and maintain a 12-Month Release Calendar locking in major release dates, code freeze windows, and maintenance windows. Run short, highly focused "Scrum of Scrums" or Release Readiness Syncs to resolve cross-team dependencies and environment conflicts. Enforce a "Train Leaves on Time" policy.
• Provide Immediate Value to Teams: Coordinate staging and test environments to act as a "traffic cop" and resolve contention. Automate the generation of release documentation, CAB (Change Advisory Board) approvals, and audit logging.
• Measure & Gamify with DORA Metrics: Track and publish key performance indicators, including Change Failure Rate (CFR), Deployment Lead Time, and Environment Downtime. Create and share a highly visible "Release Health" Dashboard.
• Facilitate Blameless Post-Mortems: Following any release-related production incidents, facilitate collaborative, blameless post-mortems with involved teams to map out what happened, identify process gaps, and update the ERM playbook.
• Incident Bridge & Change Management Support: Participate in critical situation bridges, track incident timelines, and participate in Production Management Post-Launch Incident Meetings. Manage the ERM Change Freeze Calendar and ensure all Change Requests are aligned with ERM schedules and approved prior to production launches.

Benefits

• Immediate medical, dental, vision and prescription drug coverage
• Flexible family care days, paid parental leave, new parent ramp-up programs, subsidized back-up child care and more
• Family building benefits including adoption and surrogacy expense reimbursement, fertility treatments, and more
• Vehicle discount program for employees and family members and management leases
• Tuition assistance
• Established and active employee resource groups
• Paid time off for individual and team community service
• A generous schedule of paid holidays, including the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day
• Paid time off and the option to purchase additional vacation time.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: High school or GED