Change / Release Manager

Job Role: Change / Release Manager

Location: Culver City, CA - Onsite

Job Description:

Must Have Technical/Functional Skills

• The L3 Change Manager is a senior Change Management professional responsible for governing the end-to-end change lifecycle across complex, large-scale, Applications, IT infrastructure environments (Data Center, Cloud, Network, Server, Storage, and Application layers).

Acting as the escalation point and process owner for high-risk and critical changes, the L3 Change Manager drives Agile/ITIL-aligned change governance, chairs CAB/eCAB sessions, and partners with L2/L3 technical squads, service towers, and client stakeholders to ensure changes are planned, risk-assessed, approved, implemented, and reviewed with minimal business disruption. This role is central to maintaining service stability while enabling faster, automation-driven change velocity across the account.

Roles & Responsibilities

• Own and govern the end-to-end Change Management process (RFC intake, categorization, risk/impact assessment, approval, scheduling, implementation, and closure) across infrastructure and application changes.
• Chair and facilitate CAB / eCAB / Agile CAB meetings for Critical and High-risk RFCs; ensure only rule-escalated changes consume CAB time while standard/low-risk changes move through automated, pre-approved pathways.
• Act as the primary escalation point for L2/L3 technical squads and Service Towers (DC, Cloud, Network, Server, Storage) on change conflicts, scheduling clashes, and implementation risks.
• Review change requests for completeness description, documentation, risk/impact analysis, rollback plan, and post-implementation review (PIR) requirements prior to CAB submission.
• Perform and validate risk scoring using automated risk calculators (CI/Business Service based impact values) and challenge/override assessments where technical judgment warrants.
• Maintain and continuously refine the change and release calendar; proactively identify and resolve scheduling conflicts, blackout window violations, and resource contention across parallel workstreams.
• Coordinate Emergency Change (eCAB) approvals outside of standard cycles, ensuring appropriate senior sign-off and compensating controls are documented.
• Drive automated PIR creation and completion for Change Owners/Coordinators post go-live; analyze failed/backed-out changes and feed findings back into risk rules, standard change templates, and test automation.
• Ensure the CMDB / Federated CMDB remains accurate through CI mapping and correlation, supporting reliable risk scoring and impact analysis.
• Partner with Incident and Problem Management teams to assess the change-related consequences of incidents and drive root-cause and corrective actions back into the change process.
• Track and report Change Management KPIs change success rate, emergency change ratio, standard change adoption, CAB cycle time and present governance dashboards to service towers and client leadership.
• Maintain 100% compliance with client and TCS firm-wide Change Management policies, audit requirements, and ITIL-aligned controls (pre-, during, and post-change).
• Support the transition from traditional ITIL Change Management to Agile Change Management promoting standard, pre-approved changes, aligning daily sprints to Business Unit release cycles, and applying just enough governance for low/moderate-risk changes.
• Mentor and provide functional guidance to L1/L2 Change Coordinators; act as backup/delegate approver during CAB absences.
• Collaborate with Release, Problem, and Configuration Management process owners to ensure integrated ITSM governance (e.g., ServiceNow) across the change lifecycle.

Generic Managerial Skills,

Strong stakeholder management and ability to communicate confidently with senior client and TCS leadership.

Sound decision-making and risk-management judgment under time pressure, particularly during CAB and emergency change scenarios.

Highly organized, detail-oriented, and able to manage multiple concurrent change pipelines across towers and geographies.

Demonstrated ownership and accountability; comfortable holding technical teams accountable to process and documentation standards.

Ability to work flexible hours to support 24x7 global delivery and follow-the-sun CAB coverage.

Technical Exposure

Working knowledge of ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow for RFC lifecycle, CMDB, and reporting.

Familiarity with monitoring/observability and AIOps toolsets (e.g., Datadog, SolarWinds, Moogsoft, Ignio) as they relate to change risk and post-change validation.

Exposure to DevOps/Agile ceremonies (sprint planning, release reviews) and their mapping to traditional Change Management roles.

Requirements

• 8 12 years of overall IT infrastructure/service delivery experience, including a minimum of 4 years in a dedicated Change Manager / CAB Lead role at L3 level.
• ITIL v3/v4 Foundation certification required; ITIL Intermediate (Release, Control & Validation) preferred.

PMP or Agile/Scrum certification is a plus.

• Proven experience running CAB/eCAB processes for large, multi-tower infrastructure environments (Data Center, Network, Cloud, Server/Storage).
• Strong understanding of risk assessment models, CMDB/CI relationships, and standard change templates.
• Prior experience supporting large managed-services or transformation engagements is preferred; financial services, telecom, or media/publishing account experience is a plus.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to prepare and present governance dashboards to executive stakeholders.
• Ability to be nimble and flexible prioritizing workload and reacting proactively to shifting deadlines and change conflicts.