Manager, Release & Change Engineering

Teladoc Health•USA - TX - Remote, TX

5d•$131,000 - $150,000

About The Position

The Manager, Release & Change Engineering is a hands-on technical leadership role that unifies Release Management and Change Management into a single engineering function. This role does not exist to process paperwork or maintain legacy processes. It exists to modernize how software and infrastructure releases / changes move safely and quickly from development to production. The successful candidate will be deeply fluent in CI/CD and deployment tooling, lead Change Advisory Board (CAB) with technical authority, and drive the shift from manual, meeting-based approvals to automated, risk-based controls embedded in the delivery pipeline.

Requirements

5+ years of experience in Release Engineering, DevOps, Platform Engineering, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or a related software delivery function, with direct responsibility for production deployments in complex, multi-team environments.
Strong hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, deployment tooling (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab, Azure DevOps, or similar), and release orchestration.
Experience leading Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings, release governance forums, or similar technical risk-management processes involving production changes.
Strong understanding of ITSM/ITIL change management principles, change types, risk classification, and operational controls, with experience applying them in a production environment.
Ability to assess deployment plans, rollback procedures, technical dependencies, and change risk to ensure successful production outcomes.
Working proficiency with scripting and automation tools such as Python, Bash, PowerShell, or pipeline-as-code frameworks.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, including release communications, stakeholder updates, incident coordination, and executive reporting.
Self-directed problem solver who uses data to identify opportunities, drive process improvements, and influence outcomes across technical teams.

Nice To Haves

Experience automating change and release workflows using Jira, Confluence, ServiceNow, Azure DevOps, or similar platforms, including APIs and CI/CD integrations.
Proven track record improving release processes through automation, risk-based controls, and reduction of manual operational overhead.
Experience supporting releases in cloud-based environments (AWS, Azure, GCP, or hybrid infrastructure).
Experience driving large-scale release modernization or transformation initiatives across multiple engineering teams.
Ability to influence engineering teams, architects, and senior leaders in complex enterprise environments.

Responsibilities

Own the end-to-end software release process, including deployment sequencing and release-day decision authority.
Serve as Release Manager for complex and high-risk releases, with direct accountability for go/no-go decisions.
Lead production readiness reviews, validating deployment plans, rollback procedures, and environment gating before release.
Run post-release retrospectives, track actions to closure, and convert findings into pipeline or process controls.
Lead enterprise change management processes and governance activities.
Chair the Change Advisory Board (CAB) with authority to challenge, table, or reject changes on technical grounds.
Manage the full lifecycle of standard, emergency, expedited, and planned changes.
Enforce control integrity: separation of duties between implementers and approvers, rollback readiness as a mandatory CAB gate, and accurate change-to-incident attribution, including batched deployments.
Govern change freezes, change communications, and compliance with established processes.
Assess deployment and change-related risks and recommend mitigation strategies.
Analyze failed changes to distinguish human error, process gaps, and technical failure modes, and drive corrective actions to closure with engineering owners.
Partner with Incident Management on RCAs where change is a contributing factor, closing the loop between change risk and incident impact.
Own the continuous improvement program for change and release engineering — using change failure data to inform CAB review criteria, Standard Change eligibility decisions, and deployment process improvements — partnering with platform teams to optimize testing, CI, and related tooling.
Lead a multi-year roadmap that moves change governance from manual, meeting-based review to risk-based, automated controls.
Build change controls into the CI/CD pipeline, including pipeline-generated change records, automated risk scoring, evidence-based approvals, and deployment gates.
Partner with Engineering teams – DevOps, etc. to strengthen deployment pipelines, test gating, and safer deployment patterns.
Expand Standard Change and tiered pre-approval coverage, using change data to reduce CAB dependency for low-risk, high-frequency changes.
Own release and change KPIs, including DORA-aligned change failure rate, lead time changes, deployment frequency, and failed-deployment recovery time, alongside CAB cycle time and Standard Change utilization.
Develop dashboards and reporting to provide visibility into operational performance and trends.
Present change and release health to engineering and SMO leadership with clear attribution and actionable recommendations.
Operate as a technical peer to DevOps, SRE, Platform Engineering, and development leadership, engaging in architecture discussions, deployment risk assessments, and operational readiness reviews.
Hold change authority during emergency changes, high-risk releases, and major incidents, including on-call and after-hours coverage.
Collaborate with the NOC Manager and Incident Management Manager on cross-training, coverage, and alignment on change-incident interplay.
Lead, coach, and develop a team that operates and continuously engineers release and change processes; set priorities, build the team's automation and engineering capability, and manage performance.