Software Infrastructure Release Engineer

About the role

Viasat is a company dedicated to delivering global communications solutions. We seek individuals who can contribute to our mission and help us achieve our goals.

Responsibilities

• Oversee the planning, scheduling, and control of software releases, ensuring smooth transitions from development to production.
• Plan and schedule project deliverables and manage the release lifecycle.
• Coordinate schedules and resources required for successful releases.
• Act as a liaison between various teams, including development, testing, and operations, to ensure alignment and effective communication.
• Identify and implement strategies to mitigate risks that could delay releases.
• Lead deployment activities, ensuring software is released according to the planned schedule and meets quality standards.
• Supervise the progress of releases, find issues, and continuously improve the release process to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
• Communicate key project commitments, plans, changes, and requirements to airline and relevant teams.
• Manage risks that may affect release scope.
• Ensure releases stay within budgets and requirements.
• Provide weekly updates on release activities.
• Resolve issues regarding release quality and schedule.
• Identify any project dependencies that could alter the course of release.

Requirements

• Release Management Tools: Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, Azure DevOps, and deployment automation platforms.
• Project Management: Agile methodologies, Scrum, Kanban, and project coordination frameworks.
• Technical Understanding: Software development lifecycle, testing methodologies, and infrastructure concepts.
• Communication Skills: Stakeholder management, cross-team coordination, and executive reporting.
• Risk Management: Risk assessment, contingency planning, and issue escalation procedures.
• Process Improvement: Lean principles, continuous improvement, and metrics analysis.
• Compliance Knowledge: Regulatory requirements, audit procedures, and change management.
• Incident Management: Crisis communication, rollback procedures, and post-incident analysis.
• Ability to travel up to 10%.

Qualifications

• Release Coordination & Planning: Coordinating release schedules across engineering, product, test groups, operations, and field teams.
• Managing release documentation including versioning, release notes, and certification artifacts.
• Tracking release readiness across multiple hardware/software configurations.
• Validating pre-deployment documentation and confirming all requirements are met before field installation.
• Version & Configuration Management: Implementing rigorous version control and model management practices.
• Maintaining configuration baselines for different customers and working with the team to understand configuration drift.
• Understanding A/B partition schemes for the modem and rollback procedures for the server.
• Compliance & Documentation: Coordinating with the airline program team, PTE, and third-party manufacturing for retrofit and new factory software.
• Maintaining traceability of features for software releases.
• Supporting regulatory audits with deployment records.
• Field Deployment Coordination: Working with operations teams to understand and deliver methods for OTA (SSLK, Config, Helm, MUD, etc.).
• Coordinating secure transmission of software packages for non-OTA installations.
• Tracking deployment status across fleet installations.
• Managing phased rollouts and monitoring for issues.
• Coordinating emergency patches and critical updates.
• Risk Management & Rollback: Working with CE for aligning fixes for post-release defects.
• Coordinating rollback procedures when issues are detected.
• Utilizing staged rollout functionality to limit blast radius of issues when needed.

Skills

• Technical Knowledge: Familiarity with OTA update mechanisms and secure firmware distribution.
• Knowledge of version control systems (Git) and branching strategies.
• Basic understanding of cryptographic signing and secure boot.
• Awareness of A/B partition schemes and failsafe update mechanisms.
• Industry-Specific: Understanding of aerospace/maritime operating environments.
• Understanding of field deployment constraints (bandwidth, connectivity, installation windows).
• Coordination Skills: Excellent communication skills for interfacing with technical and non-technical teams.
• Ability to manage conflicting priorities and resolve issues with limited information.
• Experience coordinating across engineering, operations, and customer-facing teams.
• Strong organizational skills for tracking complex multi-system deployments.
• Experience with release management tools (Jira, Artifactory, Git).
• Familiarity with documentation systems and change management processes.
• Ability to create and maintain releases with desired experience in Monday.com.

Pay

$120,500.00 - $190,000.00 / annually. For specific work locations within San Jose, the San Francisco Bay area, and New York City metropolitan area, the base pay range for this role is $149,500.00 - $224,500.00 / annually.

Schedule

Base pay may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Additional cash or stock incentives may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the position offered.

Benefits

Learn more about Viasat’s comprehensive benefit offerings that are focused on your holistic health and wellness at https://careers.viasat.com/benefits.

EEO Statement

Viasat is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, seeking to create a welcoming and diverse environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, genetics, age, or veteran status or any other applicable legally protected status or characteristic.