Release Manager

Role Summary

Release Manager

Key Responsibilities

• Plan & Schedule

  
  
• Publish rolling release calendar, freeze windows, and cut-off dates.
• Drive release scoping meetings with Product, Engineering, QA, Design, Security, and Customer Success.

• Gate & Qualify

  
  
• Verify CI/CD pipeline status, security scans, performance and accessibility test results.
• Chair go/no-go reviews and stop the line when critical gates fail.

• Deploy & Enable

  
  
• Orchestrate environment promotions (Dev QA Stage Prod) via GitOps/ArgoCD.
• Manage phased rollouts and feature-flag toggles; oversee App Store / Play Store submissions for mobile builds.

• Monitor & Recover

  
  
• Track live KPIs (latency, error rate, crash-free sessions) during and after releases; trigger rollback when required.
• Lead incident communication until service health is fully restored.

• Communicate

  
  
• Send timely status updates, go/no-go notifications, and customer-facing release notes.
• Keep a single “risk board” of blocking issues visible to all stakeholders.

• Improve & Automate

  
  
• Run post-release retrospectives, convert learnings into pipeline automation, templates, and checklists.
• Track and report KPIs: Planned vs Actual release dates, Change Failure Rate, MTTR, and Release Lead Time.

Must-Have Qualifications

• Proven track record of managing at least

  3+ years

  of releases for a high-traffic SaaS product or mobile + web ecosystem.
• Strong hands-on knowledge of

  CI/CD pipelines

  (GitHub Actions / GitLab CI / Jenkins),

  container orchestration

  (Kubernetes/EKS), and

  package promotion

  strategies.
• Familiarity with

  GitOps tools

  (ArgoCD or Flux) and Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/Helm).
• Experience coordinating

  App Store / Play Store

  submission cycles and phased rollouts.
• Deep understanding of release metrics: lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, MTTR.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder-management skills; can drive decisions with data under tight timelines.

Good-to-Have Skills

• Exposure to

  AWS Well-Architected

  or other cloud cost / reliability audits.
• Knowledge of

  feature-flag platforms

  (LaunchDarkly, ConfigCat) and

  A/B testing

  rollouts.
• Working familiarity with

  SOC 2 / ISO 27001

  controls and audit evidence requirements.
• Experience automating mobile build pipelines with Fastlane or Codemagic.
• Certification: AWS DevOps Engineer Pro / Certified Kubernetes Admin / PMI-ACP / SAFe.