Release Manager

Ness Digital Engineering

About The Position

Ness is seeking an experienced Senior Release Manager to shape and drive the release strategy of a technology-led organisation. The role owns the end-to-end release lifecycle across multiple products and platforms, working with international Agile squads to deploy features incrementally, safely and predictably as part of a global platform. It combines technical fluency, process discipline and stakeholder leadership, partnering with Engineering, QA, DevOps, TechOps, Security, Product and client-side teams. The position focuses on shortening lead time from QA to Live, protecting live services and customer experience, providing second-level support for escalated cases, and improving release practices through automation and transparency. The Release Manager coordinates release planning, governance, deployment, risk and quality controls, compliance, stakeholder communications and post-release hypercare. The role also performs in-depth analysis of escalated support cases, including QA retesting and log interpretation, and coordinates timely resolutions across development teams. Ness describes its workplace as inclusive and supportive of learning, certifications, hands-on experience and career development. The company offers flexible remote options and diverse projects. Its hiring process typically includes HR, technical and client interviews, followed by an offer stage, though some client processes may include additional conversations.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
At least 5 years of experience in release management, release or build engineering, DevOps coordination, or technical project management, including large-scale, multi-team releases.
Proven experience coordinating releases across international Agile squads working in different time zones.
Solid understanding of the software development lifecycle, Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe), continuous delivery and DevOps principles.
Hands-on knowledge of CI/CD tools such as Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitLab CI or GitHub Actions, and Git-based source control workflows.
Experience with ITIL-based change, release and incident management, including second-level support and log analysis.
Experience with ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow.
Proficiency with Jira and Confluence for planning, tracking and documentation.
Experience with cloud environments such as AWS, Azure or GCP, and an understanding of containerised deployments.
Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation and communication skills at technical and senior business levels.
Fluent written and spoken English.
Strategic and structured thinking with strong attention to detail.
Ownership mindset and composure under pressure.
Strong analytical and risk-assessment capabilities.
Customer-centric approach focused on minimising customer impact.
Collaborative leadership and ability to influence without direct authority.
Commitment to continuous improvement, automation and self-development.

Responsibilities

Own and maintain the enterprise release calendar, aligning timelines, environment availability and business-critical periods across squads and time zones.
Plan and schedule releases with specialism leads and component owners, keeping stakeholders informed.
Define and maintain a component map documenting dependencies, release cycles and cadence.
Define, document and continuously improve release strategies, policies, runbooks and templates in line with continuous delivery practices.
Chair release readiness reviews and go/no-go meetings, and participate in Change Advisory Board sessions to secure approvals at key milestones.
Coordinate parallel releases across geographically distributed Agile squads, managing dependencies, conflicts and competing priorities.
Oversee deployments across Development, Test, UAT, Staging and Production, including cutover planning and post-release validation.
Plan schedules to minimise impact on the global customer base and own the release notification process, improving it to enable faster releases.
Serve as the single point of accountability for release status, escalations and communications with stakeholders, clients and vendors, and lead post-go-live hypercare.
Identify and analyse release risks, plan mitigations through phased releases, and define rollback and contingency plans.
Ensure complete release documentation, audit trails, and evidence of testing and approvals in line with ITIL practices and applicable regulatory requirements.
Collaborate with QA to define release-level test strategies and verify quality gates before deployment.
Perform in-depth analysis of support cases, including retesting in QA and interpreting logs.
Coordinate across development teams to drive timely resolution of escalated issues.
Coordinate between development teams and first-level support, ensuring clear handover and communication.