Senior Release Manager

Agility Robotics•Remote, OR

3d•$128,000 - $199,000•Remote

About The Position

As a Senior Release Manager at Agility Robotics, you will own the end-to-end release process for the robot platform, coordinating across software, firmware, hardware, and field operations teams. You will triage issues that affect release decisions, build repeatable release automation, and instrument the release path so releases are measurable, observable, and reversible. You will help establish release management as a capability that enables frequent, confident releases while maintaining operational excellence in customer environments. The role covers release planning and execution; process and configuration management; system integration and validation; process improvement; field deployment and operations support; and release instrumentation and metrics. You will define release scope, timelines, readiness criteria, and go/no-go decisions; maintain configuration integrity across platforms and hardware variants; coordinate validation, staged OTA deployments, and customer-site readiness; and support incident response and post-deployment issue resolution. You will also track release health metrics, instrument delivery pipelines, and provide dashboards and alerts for engineering, product, operations, and support. This is a fully remote role, with the option to work hybrid if within commuting distance of the Salem, Oregon; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; or Fremont, California offices. All roles are U.S.-based, and applicants must have current authorization to work in the United States. The anticipated base salary range is $128,000–$199,000 USD. The final offer may depend on factors including market location, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Requirements

At least 5 years of release management experience for complex integrated systems involving hardware, firmware, and software.
A proven track record managing releases in robotics, autonomous systems, automotive, aerospace, or similar hardware-software domains.
Experience coordinating cross-functional teams through complex product development and deployment cycles.
Demonstrated ability to work effectively in fast-paced, high-growth environments with evolving requirements.
Hands-on experience building release automation, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment orchestration, using tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Buildkite.
Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), configuration management, and version control best practices.
Experience with Git and issue-tracking tools such as Jira or GitHub, including severity-based triage and release criteria.
Experience instrumenting delivery and fleet health with observability tools such as Prometheus/Grafana, OpenTelemetry, Foxglove, Datadog, or Sentry.
Proficiency in Python, Bash, or Shell scripting for automation and data analysis.
Experience with OTA updates, versioning, canary and ring-based rollouts, rollback design, and fleet state tracking.
Understanding of release dependencies across software, firmware, and hardware variants.
Familiarity with release health metrics and defining SLIs/SLOs for deployed devices.
Ownership mentality, initiative, and the ability to drive work to closure and deliver results.
Strong technical communication skills and ability to translate between engineering teams and business stakeholders.
Ability to influence without authority and drive alignment across diverse teams.
Data-driven decision-making, analytical, and problem-solving capabilities.
Resourcefulness and comfort with ambiguity, bringing clarity through structure and action.
Current authorization to work in the United States.

Nice To Haves

Experience in robotics, autonomous vehicles, or advanced manufacturing automation.
Familiarity with ROS 2 and its build and packaging tooling.
Experience implementing release train models in hardware-software systems.
Experience with automated release note generation and artifact management.
Experience with artifact signing and secure update chains.
Experience with containerization, including Docker.
Experience triaging fleet issues and driving root-cause analysis with software teams.

Responsibilities

Define release scope, objectives, and timelines with Product, Engineering, and Field Operations teams.
Plan and run the release calendar for robot software, firmware, and cloud services, including major, minor, patch, and hotfix releases.
Manage release cadence to balance innovation with stability requirements for production deployments.
Define entry and exit criteria, conduct readiness reviews, and lead go/no-go decisions based on QA and V&V test and quality results.
Run blameless post-release reviews and drive root-cause follow-up.
Establish and enforce release processes for change control, version management, and release branching.
Maintain configuration integrity across robot platforms and hardware variants.
Define and maintain release policies, documentation standards, and traceability requirements.
Partner with the Issue Management team to ensure a release vehicle is available for upcoming issues affecting the fleet.
Partner with Systems Engineering and Test teams to develop release validation strategies.
Ensure integration testing across hardware, software, and AI subsystems addresses functionality, performance, safety, and reliability.
Coordinate field-readiness assessments, including deployment scenario validation and customer acceptance criteria.
Drive cross-functional resolution of defects, integration issues, and regression failures.
Introduce release train models and standardized pipelines to make releases predictable and low-touch.
Remove manual process steps, measure their time and error costs, and provide feedback to Release Engineering on improving build and release efficiency.
Plan staged OTA rollouts through internal fleets, canary sites, rollout rings, and general availability.
Establish rollback criteria, automated rollback hooks, and production contingency plans.
Coordinate customer-site schedules and acceptance criteria to minimize operational disruption.
Maintain incident playbooks and support incident response and post-deployment issue resolution.
Establish and track release metrics, including cycle time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, defect escape rate, rollback frequency, update success rate, and time to restore.
Instrument CI/CD, signing, artifact, and OTA pipelines so each stage is timed and traceable.
Tag releases in telemetry, logging, and tracing systems so faults, crashes, and regressions map to a specific build.
Build and maintain dashboards and alerts for engineering, product, operations, and support.

Benefits

401(k) plan with a 6% company match.
Company stock options.
100% company-paid medical, dental, vision, and short- and long-term disability insurance for employees.
Benefits eligibility beginning on the first day of employment.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
Exempt employees receive flexible, unlimited PTO and 12 company holidays, including a winter shutdown.
Non-exempt employees receive 10 vacation days, paid sick leave, and 12 company holidays, including a winter shutdown, annually.
Catered lunches four times a week and healthy snacks and refreshments at the Salem and Pittsburgh locations.
Generous paid parental leave programs.
Flexible work arrangements.
Professional development and tuition reimbursement programs.
Relocation assistance for eligible roles.
Annual discretionary bonus for eligible roles.