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ProgrammaticYesterdayHybrid

Merkle

Senior Release Manager

release managementDevOpsCI/CDAzure DevOpsJenkinsGitHub ActionscloudAzureAWSGCPAgileScrumSAFerisk managementstakeholder managementprogrammatic

Key details

Salary

Not specified

Employment type

Full-time

Seniority

Mid-level

Years experience

3-5

Location

Lisbon, Portugal

Full job description

The role involves defining and managing release schedules, coordinating release scope with product owners and engineering teams, managing release calendars, and ensuring alignment with business priorities. Responsibilities include leading release deployments across environments, coordinating cross-functional teams, ensuring release criteria and quality gates are met, supervising go-live activities, managing rollback plans, assessing and mitigating release risks, leading Change Advisory Board processes, maintaining documentation, optimizing release management processes, improving CI/CD pipelines, introducing best practices, tracking KPIs, providing release status updates, communicating risks, coordinating post-release readiness, monitoring release performance, leading post-release reviews, and driving continuous improvement. Required skills include strong understanding of SDLC, Agile/Scrum/SAFe frameworks, DevOps practices, CI/CD tools (Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions), cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP), infrastructure and deployment automation knowledge, excellent coordination and communication skills, problem-solving and risk management mindset, and ability to lead without direct authority. Work visa sponsorship is not available. The position is full-time, mid-level, hybrid with an expectation of 1 day per week in office, located in Lisbon, Portugal. Benefits include vacation and wellness days, health insurance, flexible hours, digital nomad policy, career development opportunities, and various employee perks.

What you'll do

  • Define release schedules (monthly, bi-weekly, continuous delivery)
  • Coordinate release scope with product owners and engineering teams
  • Manage release calendars across multiple teams or products
  • Ensure alignment with business priorities and deadlines
  • Lead release deployment activities across environments (dev, QA, staging, production)
  • Coordinate cross-functional teams (developers, QA, DevOps, security, infrastructure)
  • Ensure all release criteria and quality gates are met before deployment
  • Supervise go-live activities and manage rollback plans if needed
  • Identify, assess, and mitigate release risks
  • Lead Change Advisory Board (CAB) processes where applicable
  • Ensure proper approvals and compliance with change management policies
  • Maintain audit trails and documentation
  • Define and optimize release management processes
  • Improve CI/CD pipelines and automation strategies
  • Introduce best practices (DevOps, Agile release trains, blue-green deployments)
  • Track KPIs such as deployment frequency, change failure rate, mean time to recovery (MTTR)
  • Act as central point of contact for release status
  • Provide release notes and updates to stakeholders
  • Communicate risks, delays, and impacts clearly to leadership
  • Coordinate with support teams for post-release readiness
  • Monitor release performance and stability
  • Lead post-release reviews (retrospectives, incident analysis)
  • Ensure issues are documented and resolved promptly
  • Drive continuous improvement from lessons learned

Requirements

  • Strong understanding of SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle), Agile / Scrum / SAFe frameworks
  • Experience with DevOps practices and CI/CD tools such as Azure DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions
  • Familiarity with cloud platforms including Azure, AWS, GCP
  • Knowledge of infrastructure, environments, and deployment automation
  • Excellent coordination and stakeholder management skills
  • Strong communication skills, especially under pressure
  • Problem-solving and risk management mindset
  • Ability to lead without direct authority (influencing multiple teams)
  • Work visa sponsorship is not available

Tech stack

Azure DevOpsJenkinsGitHub ActionsAzureAWSGCPCI/CDDevOpsAgileScrumSAFe

Benefits

25 vacation days2 additional volunteering days3 extra wellness daysMental Health First Aider and Employee Assistance programHealth insurance (also for family members)Cutting edge technology and latest IT toolsSoftware-house environmentAgile and flexible working hoursHybrid working with expectation of 1 day per week / 4 days per month in officeDigital nomad policyFocus on career developmentFull access to Dentsu Academy global online learning platformBeers, foosball, and ping-pongFree breakfast every second Wednesday of the monthEmployee discountsTeam and company eventsReferral bonus program

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