Release Program Manager

About the role

A proactive and detail-oriented Program / Release Manager with 5-7 years of experience in managing software releases, coordinating cross-functional programs, and ensuring timely delivery of high-quality products. The ideal candidate will work in Agile environments, collaborating with Engineering, Product, and business stakeholders to plan, coordinate, and execute releases while minimizing risks and ensuring operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Plan, coordinate, and manage end-to-end release activities across multiple products and teams.
• Collaborate with Engineering and Operations teams to ensure release readiness.
• Drive cutover planning, execution, and tracking to ensure project milestones are met.
• Monitor project progress, identify dependencies, risks, and blockers, and proactively drive mitigation plans.
• Ensure compliance with organizational release governance, change management, and deployment processes.
• Coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT), production deployments, and post-release validation activities.
• Prepare and communicate release notes, deployment status, and executive-level progress reports.
• Work closely with stakeholders to prioritize features, manage scope changes, and align release expectations.
• Facilitate cross-functional communication and resolve conflicts to ensure seamless collaboration.
• Drive process improvements by identifying opportunities to automate and streamline release and program management activities.
• Serve as the primary escalation point during release execution, ensuring timely resolution of blocking issues for deployments.
• Establish release-related metrics for success, including measures such as release success rates, deployment frequency, refresh cycle time, and change failure rates.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience with project management tools such as Microsoft Project and Airtable.
• Strong understanding of Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Agile methodologies (Scrum/Kanban).
• Experience with release management processes and CI/CD concepts.
• Knowledge of change management and production support processes.
• Experience working with cloud platforms is desirable.
• Excellent communication and time management skills.
• Strong leadership and stakeholder management abilities.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5-7 years of experience in both Program Management and Release Management.
• PMP, PMI-ACP, Certified Scrum Master (CSM), SAFe, or ITIL certifications are preferred.

Preferred Experience

• Experience managing enterprise software or SaaS product releases.
• Experience coordinating distributed or global teams.
• Exposure to DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud-based deployments.