Release Manager

At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse.

The opportunity: An experienced Release Manager, who leads teams to follow best practices in development standards and coding reviews. You have an enthusiasm for learning new skills and initiative to deliver the best outcomes for our clients. You will be primarily responsible for the management and protection of releases through, where appropriate, Build/Develop, QA, UAT, Pre-Prod and Production environments across multiple technical stacks including front ends, middleware, core commerce platforms and more.

What you’ll get to do:

• Negotiate, plan, and manage all release activities.
• Analyse risks and resolve issues that affect release scope, schedule, and quality.
• Work cohesively with external partners, suppliers, product owners, and system integrators (SI’s).
• Develop common strategies for release governance across multiple systems.
• Communicate release details and schedules to the Business as required.
• Act as guardian to uphold the integrity of the branching strategy and ensure processes are optimised to enable frequent and smooth releases.
• Know and understand impacts of branches and code merges in the repositories used by the dev teams.
• Work with third party managed-hosting providers to increase automated processes end-to-end.
• Work with the development teams.
• Coach and help automate release processes.
• Inform senior management of enterprise-wide exposure to release risk and effectively mitigate it.
• Create, track, and maintain a published release and deployment calendar.
• Know the tech stack of the process so you can participate and discuss with the development teams the challenges of the full delivery workflow.
• Maintain release documentation and manage key information such as build and release procedures, dependencies, and notification lists.
• Work with respective teams for sign off including manual, automation, performance and security testing to name a few.
• Work with Infrastructure teams to improve a process, pass awareness of potential problems risks and oversee that the process is fit for the Release process needs.
• Work closely with Project Management to ensure the efficiency of the delivery of Programmes and Projects (Control, Plan, Measure, Predict and React).
• Work with Service Management in the Post-Mortem analysis and improvements identification.
• Understand Infrastructure where applications will be deployed and the different technologies that can be involved in a complex e-commerce environment.

What you should have:

• Experience in DevOps related release management including implementing and managing the release management lifecycle.
• Knowledge of software development, preferably on web (e-commerce) sites.
• Knowledge in software build, repository, and maintenance tools like GitHub, Gitlab, Jenkins, Bitbucket or any other automation build and deployment tools.
• Experience working in agile environments with SCRUM methodologies.
• Passionate about delivering quality software and defending the customer/end-user perspective.
• Good communication skills and teamwork believer.
• Strong time management & organisational skills.
• Interested in automating things.
• You like to learn and investigate new technologies that the company is working with or will work in the future.
• Experience in Continuous Integration, Delivery, Deploy methodologies.
• Excellent negotiation skills and an ability to handle sensitive issues with tact and diplomacy.

What we can offer you: Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are. Our culture thrives on our core values, designed for impact-driven individuals: Heart, Brains and Courage.

Equal Opportunity: WPP (VML Enterprise Solutions) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.