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Head of Release Management

Location: Liverpool, United Kingdom

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Description

The Head of Release Engineering oversees the entire release management function across the System C group, including leading a team of release train engineers.

This role focuses on managing the end-to-end release process, from development through to production, ensuring that releases are delivered on time, meet quality standards, and align with business goals.

The Head of Release plays a critical role in optimising processes, managing risks, and ensuring cross-functional alignment across product, engineering, and operations teams.

Key Responsibilities

Release Planning & Coordination

  • Own the release management lifecycle, including scheduling, coordinating, and managing releases across multiple applications and projects.
  • Collaborate with Product Management, Development, QA, and Operations teams to ensure releases are planned and delivered according to business priorities.
  • Manage release schedules, ensuring dependencies are identified, risks are mitigated, and deliverables are aligned with business timelines.
  • Coordinate pre- and post-release activities, ensuring all teams are prepared for go-live and that rollbacks or hotfixes are handled efficiently if needed.

Process Improvement & Governance

  • Develop and maintain efficient release management processes, ensuring they are consistently followed across all R&D teams.
  • Promote, implement and improve best practices for release automation, continuous integration, and continuous delivery pipelines.
  • Ensure proper governance around release approvals, gatekeeping, and post-release reviews, ensuring lessons learned are applied to future releases.
  • Drive continuous improvement initiatives to optimise release frequency and reduce risks associated with deployments.

Risk & Issue Management

  • Identify, track, and manage risks related to release readiness, including potential delays, quality issues, or operational bottlenecks.
  • Collaborate with stakeholders to proactively resolve conflicts in priorities, resources, or technical challenges that could impact release success.
  • Ensure release-related issues are escalated and managed promptly, with clear communication to all stakeholders.

Cross-Functional Alignment & Communication

  • Act as the primary point of contact for all release-related activities, providing regular updates on release status, risks, and mitigation strategies.
  • Work closely with cross-functional teams (Product, Engineering, QA, Operations) to ensure alignment on release goals, timelines, and responsibilities.
  • Ensure stakeholders are informed of release impacts, and that release schedules are communicated clearly across the organisation.
  • Foster collaboration and coordination between teams to streamline release processes and resolve conflicts.

Education & Experience Requirements

  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Engineering, IT, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience in release or engineering management.
  • Extensive experience in release management, with a strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC) and Agile methodologies, such as SAFe, Kanban and Lean.
  • Experience managing complex, multi-platform release processes in a fast-paced, high-availability environment.
  • Strong organisational and leadership skills, with the ability to coordinate multiple teams and manage competing priorities.
  • Proficient in release automation tools and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab, etc.).
  • Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence cross-functional teams and manage expectations.
  • Strong problem-solving abilities and decision-making skills, with experience managing risks and resolving conflicts in a dynamic environment.

At System C, we prioritise transparency in our job requirements and selection criteria, ensuring they are based solely on the essentials needed for effective job performance. We consciously avoid assumptions that could skew our perception of a candidate’s suitability for hire.

Our recruitment practices are designed to ensure that no applicant is unfairly disadvantaged by procedures or requirements that disproportionately affect protected groups without being essential for the job.

For every position, we develop a detailed job description and person specification. This approach maintains our focus on the true demands of the role and the skills, experience, and qualifications necessary. During interviews, we involve multiple interviewers where possible to further mitigate unintentional bias, thereby promoting a fair and equitable hiring process.

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