Lead Release Manager

Clarivate • Kansas City, MO

6d • Hybrid

About The Position

Clarivate is seeking an experienced Release Manager to join its Enterprise Applications & Data Services team in Philadelphia. The role is the central point of coordination for complex enterprise software releases spanning multiple products, platforms, and strategic initiatives. Reporting to the Director, Engineering Operations, the Release Manager partners with Product, Development, QA, DevOps, Infrastructure, Security, and business stakeholders to make releases predictable, transparent, compliant, and low risk.

This is not a hands-on deployment role. The Release Manager structures the end-to-end release process, leads readiness reviews and go/no-go discussions, manages risks and dependencies, and ensures that the necessary approvals, communications, and controls are in place before production changes. The role also maintains release governance and audit-ready records, coordinates cutovers and post-release stabilization, and improves release processes using metrics and lessons learned.

The position is full-time and permanent, primarily during core Eastern time zone business hours, with flexibility to support planned production releases, cutovers, and collaboration across time zones when required. It is hybrid and based in Philadelphia, with work in the office up to three days per week.

Requirements

• At least 7 years of professional experience in Release Management, Technical Program/Project Management, IT Change Management, Delivery Management, or a closely related area.
• At least 7 years of experience in enterprise software delivery environments, coordinating releases across multiple applications, products, or technical teams.
• Demonstrated experience owning end-to-end release activities, including release calendars, readiness reviews, go/no-go decisions, production cutovers, and post-release stabilization.
• Demonstrated experience leading or representing software releases through Change Advisory Board (CAB) and Change Management processes, including production change approvals.
• Demonstrated experience managing release risks, dependencies, escalations, and rollback or contingency plans for enterprise production releases.
• Experience supporting audit, compliance, and release governance requirements, including approvals, testing evidence, change records, and release documentation.
• Experience working within Agile/SDLC and CI/CD or DevOps delivery environments, using Jira, ServiceNow, or equivalent release/change management tools.

Nice To Haves

• Experience supporting Salesforce, SaaS applications, hybrid or multi-cloud environments, or enterprise platforms such as NetSuite, Oracle EBS, or Boomi.
• Experience with Confluence, SharePoint, Azure DevOps, GitHub, or CI/CD pipeline tooling.
• An ITIL, PMP, SAFe, PMI-ACP, Scrum, or similar relevant certification.
• Experience supporting enterprise transformation programs and using release metrics such as release success rate, deployment lead time, or mean time to restore.

Responsibilities

• Own, maintain, and publish the enterprise release calendar, coordinating release scope, manifests, milestones, and deployment timelines across products and platforms.
• Lead release planning, readiness reviews, stakeholder alignment sessions, and go/no-go decisions, ensuring required testing, approvals, and sign-offs are complete.
• Coordinate delivery activities across Product, Development, QA, DevOps, Infrastructure, Security, and business teams, resolving scheduling conflicts and competing priorities.
• Identify and manage release risks, blockers, dependencies, and resource constraints, and create mitigation, escalation, rollback, and contingency plans.
• Represent releases in CAB and change-control forums, ensuring production changes follow enterprise governance and approval workflows.
• Develop implementation and cutover plans for major initiatives, coordinate go-lives and release war rooms, and support post-release validation and stabilization.
• Manage release communications, including maintenance and downtime notifications, vendor upgrade impacts, release announcements, and executive status reporting.
• Maintain audit-ready release records and evidence, and ensure compliance with established release controls and policies.
• Establish release KPIs, analyze failures and process gaps, and partner with Engineering and DevOps teams to improve release predictability, efficiency, and quality.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed