Release Engineer in Watford

At the heart of everything we do is our vision to change lives every day, and our mission to grow The National Lottery responsibly and champion its impact. We are Allwyn UK, part of the Allwyn Entertainment Group – a multi-national lottery operator with a market-leading presence across the USA and Europe. While the main contribution of The National Lottery to society is through the funds to good causes, at Allwyn we put our purpose and values at the heart of everything we do. Join us as we embark on a once-in-a-lifetime, large-scale transformation journey by creating a National Lottery that delivers more money to good causes.

A bit about the role: As a Release Engineer you will work closely with the Environment and Release Manager, managing all code releases across all of our test environments. This role will implement automated processes to streamline the release process and ensure environment availability, reliability and stability. This role forms part of the ‘Centre of Excellence’, providing services across agile and end-to-end teams.

What you’ll be doing:

• Work with internal teams and external vendors to automate the build, deployments and integration of software releases.
• Define best practices for the release management process ensuring software is released using consistent and repeatable deployment methodologies.
• Release planning and coordination, ensuring environments are available where necessary.
• Test environment configuration and maintenance, ensuring all test environment configurations are understood, documented and are consistent across environments.
• Build real-time dashboards that enable software versions to be tracked.
• Manage release related risks, issues, and cross-platform deployment dependencies.
• Support the Test Data Strategy ensuring that any production data sets are anonymised.
• Support the QA team in investigating errors found in deployments and providing first line support for environment defect triages.
• Work with QA and development teams to automate the deployment process and strategic move towards Continuous Integration (CI).
• Develop Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) to track efficiency of release deployments.
• Coordination with stakeholders (internal and external) as to the availability of test environments and releases.
• Schedule downtime with stakeholders in periods of low usage to minimize impact to ongoing testing activities.

What experience we’re looking for:

• Hands-on Environment and Release Management experience, supporting on-prem and cloud-based environment strategies.
• Knowledge in web application and open-source technologies, particularly Java, Apache, Tomcat, web services, APIs and service virtualization.
• Experience of working with Linux, AIX and Windows operating systems.
• Knowledge and experience of SQL across various database implementations, including DB2, Oracle and MySQL.
• Understanding of IT security concepts, APM tools.
• Knowledge of different operating systems (Windows / Linux) and Knowledge of AWS.
• Appreciation of different delivery models (Agile/Waterfall) and the effect that utilizing these models might have on the requirements of the Test Environments.
• Awareness of development tools used in software development (Jenkins/GIT/Subversion).
• Hands-on experience of supporting CI/CD pipelines.

About us: At Allwyn, we are dedicated to changing lives and growing the National Lottery responsibly, championing its positive impact on people, places, and the planet. Innovation - We pride ourselves on it! We’re constantly looking for new ways to excite our customers, bringing new products to market to enjoy which is all supported by our responsible play values and making them accessible to all.

Giving back – Did you know that playing the lottery generates around £30m a week for charities and good causes in the UK? Our aim is to have doubled this number by the end of the first 10-year license.

Sustainability – Our aim is to become a net zero national lottery. We have 2030 targets to decarbonise our operations and energy. We’ve already transitioned to renewable energy providers, made our London and Watford offices zero gas, and ensured our fleet consists of low-emission vehicles. In addition, we’re working with our value chain partners to develop a net zero target date.

Empowering every voice – We believe in creating a culture where everyone feels they belong, can be themselves, has access to opportunities and can thrive for the benefit of good causes. Our diverse teams are working hard to make all parts of The National Lottery inclusive – whether people play a game in a store or online, because when everyone can play, everyone wins.

An inclusive reward offering with wellbeing at the centre: At Allwyn, inclusion is built into how we care for our people. Our benefits and policies support colleagues and their families at every stage of life and career. By prioritising wellbeing and belonging, we create a workplace where everyone feels valued, rewarded, and empowered to succeed. Our people are more than colleagues - they’re winners, driving positive change and making a real difference in communities.

Benefits:

• Company Bonus Scheme
• Matched pension contributions up to 8.5%
• 26 days annual leave + 2 Life Days (and bank holidays)
• Single Private Health Cover
• Complimentary Private Medical Income Protection
• Flexible Benefits – EV Scheme, Money Coach, Will Writing, Mortgage Advice, Dental and Eye Care Schemes.
• Enhanced Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity, Adoption)
• Wellness Allowance £500
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Discounted Health Assessments
• Volunteering Days
• Matched Funding

We are a Disability Confident Leader which means we’ve taken proactive steps to ensure our workplace is accessible and inclusive for disabled and neurodivergent colleagues and candidates. As part of this we offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential requirements of the job. If you need any assistance or adjustments to this job description or in the application process, please contact a member of the talent team at careers@allwyn.co.uk and we’ll be happy to help.