Manager - Release Engineering Services

About the role

Manages ERCOT Release Engineering Services function encompassing three core delivery disciplines: Release DevOps Engineering (CI/CD, automated deployments, DevSecOps, and pipeline operations), Release Planning and Governance (product release planning, backlog facilitation, change management, and ITSM governance), and Release and Scope Management (release scope baselining, formal scope change control, and traceability from approved backlog items through production deployment).

Leads a team of Release Engineers and Release Train Engineers across all technology stacks and product lines. Responsible for the end-to-end software delivery lifecycle from code commit to production ensuring releases are automated, scope-controlled, compliant with NERC CIP requirements, governed through ServiceNow, and continuously improved through DORA metrics and retrospective practices.

Responsibilities

• Define and govern the CI/CD pipeline architecture, branching strategy, and deployment toolchain standards (GitHub Actions, Harness, Jenkins, Azure DevOps) across all product lines; ensure engineering practices align to DevOps industry benchmarks and NERC CIP compliance requirements.
• Provide management oversight of all deployments to test, UAT, staging, and production environments; govern release readiness criteria, change authorization processes, and rollback decision authority for high-impact releases across Agile and waterfall delivery tracks.
• Own end-to-end release and scope governance for all product lines, ensuring every release is delivered against a formally approved, traceable scope baseline and that scope changes are controlled rather than absorbed informally.
• Facilitate scope trade-off and re-prioritization decisions during PI Planning Adjustments, Inspect & Adapt sessions, and mid-cycle re-baselining; balance business demand against team capacity, schedule, and release risk.
• Serve as the management escalation point for scope disputes between product, engineering, and business stakeholders, ensuring scope decisions are documented, communicated to all teams, and reflected in the release calendar and CAB record.
• Own the DevSecOps framework for Release Engineering; ensure NERC CIP-aligned controls (vulnerability scanning, SBOM, image signing, secrets management, audit trails) are embedded in all CI/CD pipelines and production deployment workflows.
• Own DORA metrics instrumentation and executive reporting for Release Engineering; track deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, and MTTR; drive continuous improvement against DORA elite performance targets.
• Lead cross-function retrospectives and Inspect & Adapt sessions spanning Release Engineering, Release Planning, and Release/Scope Management; measure improvement impact using DORA metrics, flow metrics, scope stability metrics, and ITC change success rates.
• Lead cross-function retrospectives and Inspect & Adapt sessions spanning Release Engineering, Release Planning, and Release/Scope Management; measure improvement impact using DORA metrics, flow metrics, scope stability metrics, and ITC change success rates.

Requirements

• Minimum 8 years of experience in Release Engineering, DevOps, Platform Engineering, or Release Management, including at least 2 years in a people management or technical leadership role spanning CI/CD pipeline ownership, ITSM change management governance, and release scope management.
• Demonstrated technical depth in CI/CD tooling (GitHub Actions, Harness, Jenkins, or Azure DevOps), DevSecOps practices (NERC CIP or equivalent compliance controls), and ITSM platforms (ServiceNow Change Management).
• Experience managing both software deployment engineering and release governance functions strongly preferred.
• Experience managing delivery across Agile (Scrum, SAFe, Kanban), waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies.
• Demonstrated ability to govern DORA metrics programs, lead CAB processes, and drive continuous improvement across cross-functional engineering and planning teams.
• Demonstrated experience governing release and project scope across the full delivery lifecycle, including scope baselining and formal change control (per PMI Scope Management practices: Plan Scope, Define Scope, Create WBS, Validate Scope, Control Scope), scope-lock enforcement within Agile Release Train (SAFe PI) cadences, and requirements traceability from approved backlog items through production deployment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree: Business, Computer Science, MIS or related field (Required)
• or a combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge to a major in such fields is required
• TIL Foundation v4 or higher (Preferred)
• SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) or Release Train Engineer (RTE) (Preferred)
• PMP or PgMP (Preferred)