Description:

Release Manager (with Development Background)

Role Overview

The Release Manager (with Development Background) is a pivotal, Full-time role requiring 812 years of total experience, combining strong operational leadership with deep technical insight.

This position requires a mandatory 5 years of experience in software development (hands-on coding background) paired with 3+ years of dedicated experience in release management.

Based in Bangalore and reporting to the Head of Engineering, the incumbent is critical for bridging the gap between development, QA, and operations to ensure smooth, reliable, and predictable software deliveries.

Job Summary

We are seeking an experienced Release Manager with a proven software development background to lead our end-to-end release management lifecycle. The ideal candidate will combine a developers technical depth with a coordinators precision to ensure timely, high-quality, and reliable deployments. Key responsibilities include defining the release calendar, governing the CI/CD pipeline, managing build and release tools, and serving as the primary liaison between technical teams and business stakeholders, ensuring all releases are predictable, well-documented, and aligned with organizational quality standards.

Key Responsibilities and Release :

Release Strategy & Governance :

- Lead our release management process from planning and scheduling through deployment and post-release verification.

- Define, manage, and communicate the release calendar across all teams and environments (Dev, QA, Staging, Production).

- Ensure releases are predictable, well-documented, and high quality by enforcing governance standards and stage-gates.

Technical Process Management :

- Leverage a strong 5 years of experience in software development (hands-on coding background) to understand technical dependencies, risks, and complexities within the codebase and architecture.

- Govern and optimize the build and release tools chain (e.g., Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI, TeamCity), ensuring the pipeline is robust, automated, and efficient.

- Facilitate the technical bridging the gap between development, QA, and operations teams, translating technical concerns into clear release risks.

Coordination and Communication :

- Act as the primary coordination point for all release-related activities, ensuring alignment across cross-functional teams (developers, product managers, QA, and business stakeholders).

- Manage release risks and dependencies, driving mitigation strategies and communicating status updates, scope changes, and Go/No-Go decisions clearly to senior management and stakeholders.

Deployment Automation and CI/CD :

- Drive the adoption of operational excellence and DevOps principles within the release process to further enhance automation, speed, and reliability of deployments.

- Ensure comprehensive version control, branching strategies, and environment configurations are strictly followed prior to deployment.

Mandatory Skills & Qualifications :

- Experience: 812 years of experience in total professional experience.

- Development Background: Minimum 5 years of experience in software development (hands-on coding background).

- Release Management: Minimum 3+ years of experience in release management.

- Tools: Mandatory Experience with build and release tools (e.g., Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI).

- Education: Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.

- Soft Skills: Excellent problem-solving, organizational, and communication skills.

Preferred Skills :

- Experience working with container orchestration (Docker/Kubernetes) deployment processes.

- Familiarity with Gitflow or Trunk-Based Development branching strategies.

- Certification in ITIL or a relevant Agile framework (CSM, SAFe).

- Experience implementing release dashboards and metrics tracking (e.g., deployment frequency, lead time).