Technical Release Manager

About the Role

The Technical Release Manager will own end-to-end release governance, deployment planning, production readiness, and change management across the EDO ecosystem, including Azure Databricks Lakehouse, Azure Data Factory, Power BI, Tableau, Collibra, Informatica, and related data platforms.

This is a highly hands-on technical role requiring deep expertise in Azure Databricks, Azure DevOps, Git repositories, CI/CD automation, release orchestration, production change management, and stakeholder engagement. The individual will serve as the bridge between Data Engineering, Data Operations, Platform Engineering, QA, Business Teams, and Production Support to ensure reliable and controlled production deployments.

This is not a project management role. We are seeking a technical leader who understands source code management, CI/CD pipelines, Git branching strategies, Databricks deployments, release automation, and enterprise production support processes.

Key Responsibilities

EDO Release Management

• Own and continuously improve the EDO Release Management Framework.
• Establish and govern release calendars, deployment schedules, and environment management processes.
• Lead release planning, deployment coordination, and production readiness reviews.
• Drive Go/No-Go decision meetings and release approvals.
• Ensure compliance with change management, audit, and governance requirements.
• Develop release metrics, dashboards, and operational KPIs.

Azure Databricks Release Governance

• Manage production deployments for:
  • Databricks Workflows
  • Delta Live Tables (DLT)
  • Databricks Apps
  • Notebooks
  • Unity Catalog objects
  • SQL Warehouse assets
  • Lakehouse data pipelines
• Define deployment standards, promotion criteria, rollback procedures, and release controls.
• Ensure adherence to platform architecture, security, and operational standards.

Azure DevOps & CI/CD Management

• Design and manage enterprise release pipelines using Azure DevOps.
• Establish and enforce Git branching and version control strategies.
• Govern pull request reviews, code promotion processes, release tagging, and deployment approvals.
• Drive automation of build, test, deployment, and validation activities.
• Partner with engineering teams to improve deployment reliability and speed.

Production Impact Assessment & Risk Management

• Work closely with business stakeholders, platform teams, and engineering teams to evaluate production impacts of proposed changes.
• Assess risks associated with data pipelines, reporting solutions, integrations, infrastructure, security, and performance.
• Identify downstream dependencies and potential business impacts before production deployment.
• Develop contingency, rollback, and mitigation plans for major releases.

Change Management & Governance

• Represent EDO in Change Advisory Board (CAB) reviews.
• Govern RFC (Request for Change) processes and approvals.
• Maintain release documentation, deployment evidence, and audit records.
• Ensure segregation-of-duty controls and production governance standards are followed.

Operational Excellence

• Lead deployment command centers and production support coordination during major releases.
• Drive post-deployment validation and production stabilization activities.
• Coordinate root cause analysis and remediation activities for release-related incidents.
• Partner with Data Operations, Platform Engineering, Security, and Managed Service teams to improve operational maturity.

Required Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Engineering, or related field.

Experience & Skills:

• 10+ years of Release Management, Change Management, or Production Operations experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience supporting Azure cloud-based data platforms.
• 5+ years of experience with Azure DevOps, Git, and CI/CD automation.
• Experience managing enterprise-scale production deployments across multiple teams and technologies.
• Experience working within regulated environments such as healthcare, financial services, or similar industries preferred.

Preferred Qualifications

• Healthcare payer domain experience.
• Experience supporting production DataOps organizations.
• Experience managing releases across vendor and managed service teams.
• Knowledge of ITIL incident, problem, and change management processes.
• Experience supporting audit, compliance, and governance initiatives.
• Microsoft Azure certifications and/or Databricks certifications preferred.

Critical Competencies

Technical Leadership

• Ability to challenge and influence technical teams.
• Strong understanding of software delivery and DataOps lifecycle management.
• Ability to translate technical risks into business impacts.

Stakeholder Management

• Exceptional communication and facilitation skills.
• Ability to coordinate multiple cross-functional teams.
• Strong executive communication and presentation capabilities.

Analytical and Operational Thinking

• Ability to assess release risk, production impacts, performance implications, and operational readiness.
• Strong problem-solving and incident management capabilities.
• Ability to prioritize work in a fast-paced production environment.