Release Manager

Release Manager
Location: Hybrid, occasional travel to London office once a month
Salary: £65,000
Contract: Permanent, Full-Time
We're partnering with an established UK organisation to appoint a Release Manager as part of the continued development of its Technology function.
The technology team has made significant progress over the last couple of years and is continuing to develop its approach to technology delivery, governance and operational support. This is an important role within that journey, providing the confidence, structure and coordination needed to manage releases and technology environments effectively across a varied technology landscape.
This isn't a role where you'll be expected to automate everything or spend your time managing routine deployments. Instead, you'll be the person who can look across the release, environment and testing landscape, understand what needs to happen, challenge where appropriate and give wider teams confidence that things are being managed in the right way.
You'll work closely with Business teams, Test teams, Architects, Project and Delivery teams, technical specialists and external suppliers. You'll need the confidence and credibility to operate across the wider organisation, explain technical issues clearly and bring different teams together around successful technology change.
The technology estate includes cloud platforms, enterprise business applications and a range of third-party systems, with the organisation continuing to develop its cloud-first approach.
Key Responsibilities

• Own and coordinate the release process across development, test, UAT, training, staging and production environments
• Plan and coordinate technology releases across multiple environments and services
• Maintain release calendars, readiness activity and clear communication around upcoming changes
• Work closely with Test teams to ensure environments and test data are available and fit for purpose
• Coordinate environment refreshes, upgrades, patching, access, configuration and dependencies
• Identify release, environment and deployment risks and make sure they are understood and addressed
• Support release readiness reviews and ensure appropriate rollback, contingency and recovery arrangements are in place
• Provide governance, assurance and clear audit trails around releases and environments
• Work closely with Architects, Business teams, Project teams and technical specialists to understand dependencies and requirements
• Manage relationships with third-party technology suppliers and ensure release activity is properly coordinated
• Sense-check existing processes and provide constructive challenge where improvements can be made
• Help improve the stability, consistency and overall quality of technology releases
• Contribute to the continued development of release, environment and change management practices
• Communicate technical issues, risks and dependencies clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Required Experience

• Strong commercial experience in Release Management, Environment Management, Technology Delivery, Change & Release or a closely related role
• Experience managing releases across multiple technology environments, including development, testing, UAT and production
• Experience coordinating technology releases, deployments and release readiness activity
• Good understanding of the relationship between environments, testing, releases and operational readiness
• Experience working within a modern cloud technology environment, ideally Microsoft Azure
• Experience with enterprise business applications and SaaS platforms
• Strong understanding of change governance, risk management and technology delivery processes
• Experience working with Test teams and supporting the preparation of environments for testing and UAT
• Confident working across technical and non-technical teams, including Business stakeholders, Architects and delivery teams
• Experience managing relationships with third-party technology suppliers
• Strong organisational skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities, dependencies and deadlines
• Good judgement and the confidence to challenge, question and sense-check existing approaches
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain technical matters clearly to wider business audiences
• Experience within a charity, not-for-profit or similarly complex organisation would be particularly valuable

What's on Offer

• £65,000 salary
• Strong employer pension contribution
• 28 days' annual leave plus bank holidays
• Opportunity to play an important role in the continued development of a growing Technology function
• Broad exposure across cloud technology, enterprise applications and complex technology change
• Genuine influence across Technology, Business, Testing and Architecture
• A role with the autonomy to improve how releases and environments are managed
• Supportive and flexible working environment

This is a great opportunity for an experienced Release Manager, Environment Manager, Change & Release Manager or Technology Delivery professional who enjoys working across teams and bringing structure and confidence to complex technology change.
You'll have the opportunity to play a key role in a developing Technology function, working across a broad technology landscape while helping shape how releases, environments and testing are managed going forward.