Enterprise Software Release Manager - Geopaq Logic

Enterprise Software Release Manager

Location – Kansas City, MO (Hybrid)

Contract to hire position. 

An Enterprise Software Release Manager role focuses on ensuring the smooth and efficient delivery of software releases across large-scale environments. This involves coordinating across multiple teams (development, QA, operations, security), managing risks, and maintaining alignment with business goals.

The goal is to ensure that every release is delivered on time, with high quality, and minimal disruption to the business. In addition, this role will focus on continuous improvement, optimizing processes, and using data to make informed decisions that improve future releases.

An 8–10-year experience in managing large-scale enterprise environment, implementing governance, optimizing release processes, excellent verbal and written communication skills and leading cross-functional teams. A deep understand of Software Development Life Cycle, CI/CD, complex release pipelines, On-prem and In-Cloud deployment environments.

Key responsibilities and processes to be managed by an Enterprise Software Release Manager in this role:

1. Release Planning & Strategy
   1. Scope Definition: Work with product managers, business stakeholders, and development teams to define the scope of each release, ensuring it aligns with business priorities.
   2. Release Calendar: Maintain a release calendar that balances development schedules with business needs, minimizing disruption while ensuring timely delivery of features.
   3. Risk Assessment: Conduct a thorough risk analysis for each release, identifying dependencies, potential bottlenecks, and impact on the existing system.

1. Coordination & Communication
   1. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Function as the liaison between developers, testers, security teams, and operations, ensuring that everyone is aligned on the release objectives and timelines.
   2. Stakeholder Management: Regularly communicate with stakeholders (executives, product owners, and end-users) to provide updates on release progress, key milestones, and any potential risks.
   3. Release Meetings: Host release readiness reviews, change control board (CCB) meetings, and daily stand-ups during critical release windows to ensure smooth coordination across teams.

1. Change and Release Governance
   1. Change Management: Ensure that all changes introduced in the release are documented, tested, and approved. Oversee the change control process, ensuring compliance with organizational policies.
   2. Approval Process: Establish clear checkpoints for code reviews, security audits, and final signoffs to ensure the release is high-quality and risk-free.
   3. Compliance: Ensure releases adhere to all relevant compliance standards (e.g., SOX, HIPAA, GDPR), and all documentation is in place for audits.

1. Deployment Automation & Tooling
   1. CI/CD Pipeline: Oversee the implementation and maintenance of a Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline to automate builds, tests, and deployments, using tools like Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps, or AWS CodePipeline.
   2. Deployment Strategies: Plan and implement advanced deployment strategies such as blue/green deployments, canary releases, and feature toggles to minimize downtime and reduce release risk.
   3. Environment Consistency: Work closely with DevOps teams to ensure that all environments (development, QA, staging, production) are consistent and properly configured.

1. Quality Assurance & Testing
   1. Testing Strategy: Collaborate with the QA team to define a testing strategy that includes unit tests, integration tests, functional tests, and performance/load testing.
   2. User Acceptance Testing (UAT): Ensure that business users conduct UAT in a pre-production environment, validating that the software meets functional requirements before production release.
   3. Regression Testing: Confirm that regression testing is completed to ensure new releases do not introduce bugs into existing features. 

1. Risk Management & Rollback Planning
   1. Impact Analysis: Leverage tools like CMDB to assess the impact of the release on other services, systems, and business functions, ensuring all dependencies are accounted for.
   2. Rollback Plan: Always maintain a rollback or contingency plan in case the release introduces critical issues. Ensure backups, previous software versions, and deployment snapshots are available for quick recovery.
   3. Pre-Deployment Checks: Validate that all pre-deployment checklists (security, performance, compatibility) are complete before giving the final go-ahead.

1. Release Execution & Monitoring
   1. Go/No-Go Decisions: Lead the final Go/No-Go meeting prior to the release, where risks are evaluated, and final approval is obtained from key stakeholders.
   2. Real-Time Monitoring: During deployment, monitor system performance, application logs, and alerts using tools like New Relic, Datadog, or Splunk to ensure the system remains stable.
   3. Deployment Validation: After deployment, validate that the new software behaves as expected through post-deployment testing or smoke tests.

1. Post-Release Review & Continuous Improvement
   1. Post-Mortem Analysis: If issues arise during or after the release, lead a post-mortem to analyze root causes, what went wrong, and what could be improved for future releases.
   2. Metrics & KPIs: Track and report on release metrics such as Mean Time to Recovery (MTTR), defect rates, and release lead time to continuously improve release efficiency and quality.
   3. Feedback Loop: Gather feedback from all involved teams (development, QA, operations) and end-users to identify areas for process improvement.

1. Documentation & Auditing
   1. Release Notes: Ensure comprehensive release notes are prepared, documenting all features, fixes, and known issues. These are distributed to stakeholders and end-users as part of the release communication plan.
   2. Change Log: Maintain a detailed change log for all changes introduced in the release, ensuring auditability for compliance or post-release analysis.
   3. Knowledge Base: Update internal documentation, including knowledge base articles and standard operating procedures, based on changes introduced by the release.