Release Manager - It Membership

Release Managers are responsible for the release lifecycle. This includes the planning, scheduling, coordinating and overall management of the software build process through the different stages within Costco's delivery lifecycle. Release Managers are responsible for creating detailed integrated release plans across several products and dependencies, for improving the software build process, and for optimizing the release pipeline. Release Managers build and maintain relationships with stakeholders, team members and peers and are responsible for communicating release expectations and statuses across value streams, program stakeholders and impacted users.
The Costco Membership Release Manager coordinates and orchestrates the efforts required to introduce application changes into production for delivery to end-users. The Release Manager is responsible for setting and communicating release expectations, milestones and statuses, creating and sending post-release reports to all involved parties and impacted users from end-user to enterprise leadership.
Job Duties/Essential Functions
• Builds operational readiness plan (e.g. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), run book, call trees with escalations, etc.) to ensure broader teams are prepared for deployment.
• Collaborates with program stakeholders to obtain final sign-off to release a build.
• Communicates release impediments and collaborates with teams to define mitigation strategies.
• Coordinates the resolution of portfolio-related production issues due to build and deployment errors with the support of environment and tooling teams.
• Provides teams and program stakeholders with coaching on organizational release management practices and disciplines.
• Defines and manages release readiness activities and success criteria in conjunction with program stakeholders.
• Builds and maintains relationships with stakeholders, team members and peers.
• Identifies automation tools to automate build and release pipelines to improve the speed and reliability of the release process.
• Facilitates post-release retrospectives.
• Orchestrates and reports weekly, monthly, and project release activities within the Costco Membership development life cycle which includes, but is not limited to business relations, infrastructure, change management, service desk representatives and other related teams to ensure awareness, successful operational handoffs, deployment and acceptance.
• Connects development, QA, Project Management, Infrastructure, Operations, and other IT teams to support the related changes for product and project portfolio roadmaps and ensure the Build, Deploy, Release team can proactively prepare for future needs.
• Develops and stewards the Release Management process, along with establishing specific standards to govern the process.
• Adheres and contributes to improvements to the release process that support quality releases and minimize risk to the production and non-production environments.
• Establishes and communicates release expectations, milestones and release activity progress; provides reports for and across all involved teams.
• Identifies critical success factors and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure and report on release quality.
• Creates and maintains required release documentation that supports any given release through its production life cycle.
• Maintains and controls risks for the duration of the release cycle to ensure a well-organized and successful deployment.
• Tracks to ensure that approved entrance/exit criteria required for production deployment are in place.
• Coordinates environment refresh cycles with various enterprise teams to minimize release impact and sustain system integrity and availability.
• Works with the various enterprise teams to proactively plan system patching and application upgrades/enhancements to minimize release impact and risk.
• Regular and reliable workplace attendance at your assigned location.
Ability to operate vehicles, equipment or machinery.
• Computer, phone, printer, copier, fax
Non-Essential Functions
• Assists in other areas of the department as necessary.
• Assists in other areas of the company as necessary.
Ability to operate vehicles, equipment or machinery.
• Same as Essential Functions
Experience, Skills, Education & Licenses/Certifications
Required:
• Excellent interpersonal and diplomatic skills as well as a positive attitude.
• Strong communication skills, both verbal and written.
• Strong organizational and planning skills, with experience building and executing tactical plans.
• Ability to negotiate timelines and deliverables with a strong sense of urgency.
• Strong process knowledge of System Development Life Cycles, and Agile Methodologies.
• Familiarity of Change Management processes
• Flexible, must be able to change priorities quickly, focus on new ones without distraction, able to deal with conflict and work under pressure to meet deliverable dates/timelines.
• Scheduling flexibility to meet the needs of the business including nights, weekends, and holidays.
Recommended:
• 3 years' experience in IT; BA/BS degree in computer science or related technical field is preferred.
• Costco membership background.
• Certified Scrum Master.
• Successful internal candidates will have spent one year or more on their current team.
Other Conditions
• Management will review the Job Analysis for this position prior to a job offer.
Required Documents
• Cover Letter
• Resume
• Last two performance reviews
• Attendance records for current year (Do not include absences covered by paid sick/personal time,
FMLA or other protected absences.)
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