At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the transformation of our release management ecosystem and drive automation in software delivery.
- Company: Join a forward-thinking tech company committed to innovation and sustainability.
- Benefits: Enjoy flexible work options, an inclusive culture, and opportunities for global impact.
- Other info: Be part of a dynamic team focused on continuous improvement and engineering enablement.
- Why this job: Shape the future of software delivery with cutting-edge AI practices and collaborative teams.
- Qualifications: 10+ years in software delivery, strong knowledge of CI/CD, and proven change management skills.
The predicted salary is between 63000 - 77000 £ per year.
Overview
As Head of Release Management, you will modernize our release ecosystem across Product and Technology, embedding governance, compliance, and readiness into engineering workflows.
You will define long-term release strategy for multiple release types and establish automated, evidence-based controls.
You will lead a transformation-driven team, driving automation, telemetry, and platform-enabled deployment practices.
This is a chance to shape how we scale and secure software delivery at enterprise scale, including AI/native release practices.
- Pay / Benefits
- flexible and hybrid work opportunities
- inclusive workplace experiences
- opportunity to drive transformation
- collaborative culture
- global impact
- commitment to sustainability
Responsibilities
- Define and execute the release ecosystem strategy across Product and Technology
- Embed release controls into developer workflows, deployment pipelines and platform capabilities
- Establish automated, auditable and risk-based controls, including policy-as-code and release risk scoring
- Define differentiated release models for product, service, emergency, security, platform, customer onboarding and AI/model releases
- Lead release-led customer onboarding governance, including readiness, environment validation, support readiness and post-onboarding assurance
- Shape AI-native release management practices for AI-generated code, agentic workflows, prompts, models and knowledge assets
- Own or co-own environment strategy, shared environment governance, readiness, utilization and observability
- Build release intelligence capabilities using telemetry, operational data and AI to predict deployment risks and readiness gaps
- Drive engineering enablement by helping teams deploy and onboard customers safely, reliably and independently
- Lead and develop a release management function focused on transformation, automation and continuous improvement
- Build investment cases and transformation roadmaps to secure tooling, automation, telemetry and platform capabilities
- Key requirements
- 10+ years of experience in software delivery, release management, Dev Ops, SRE, platform engineering, cloud operations, engineering program management or engineering leadership
- Proven track record modernizing release, deployment or operational governance models across complex product, platform or service environments
- Strong knowledge of CI/CD, progressive delivery, feature flags, deployment automation, policy-as-code, automated compliance, observability, SRE principles and modern engineering practices
- Experience defining release approaches for planned, emergency, security, platform, service and out-of-band releases
- Experience with environment strategy, shared environment governance, test environment utilization, customer onboarding readiness, environment observability and ephemeral or on-demand environments
- Experience improving customer onboarding, production readiness, service transition or customer activation processes in a cloud, Saa S or enterprise software environment
- Ability to use data, telemetry, dashboards, predictive insights or AI to improve release risk management, deployment reliability and engineering productivity
- Experience building investment cases and transformation proposals to secure funding for tooling, automation, platform capability, environment improvements or operating model change
- Strong stakeholder leadership skills, with the ability to influence Product, Engineering, Platform, Security, Operations, Support and executive stakeholders
- Proven change management capability, with experience moving teams from traditional governance models to modern, platform-enabled and evidence-based release practices
- Strategic transformation leader who is a systems thinker, data-driven decision maker, AI-aware, security-conscious, and passionate about engineering enablement
- stakeholder influence
- change management
- data-driven decision making
- CI/CD
- progressive delivery
- feature flags
Senior Director Release Management in London employer: IFS
As a leading employer in the tech industry, we pride ourselves on fostering a collaborative and inclusive workplace where innovation thrives. Our hybrid work model supports diverse lifestyles, while our commitment to engineering excellence and responsible AI practices ensures that you will be part of meaningful projects that drive customer value. With ample opportunities for professional growth and mentorship within our Enterprise Asset Management team, you'll be empowered to develop your skills and make a significant impact in the world of software engineering.
