At Talkdesk, we are courageous innovators focused on redefining the customer experience, making the impossible possible for companies globally. We champion an inclusive and diverse culture representative of the communities in which we live and serve. And, we give back to our community by volunteering our time, supporting non-profits, and minimizing our global footprint. Each day, thousands of employees, customers, and partners all over the world trust Talkdesk to deliver a better way to great experiences.
We are recognized as a cloud contact center leader by many of the most influential research organizations, including Gartner and Forrester. With $498 million in total funding, a valuation of more than $10 Billion, and a ranking of #16 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list, now is the time to be part of the Talkdesk legacy to help accelerate our success in a new decade of transformational growth.
At Talkdesk, we embrace FAST, our fundamental operating principles that define who we are as an organization. These principles drive us to make the impossible possible. FAST: Focus + Accountability + Speed = Talkdesker.
- Focus: Focus time, energy and attention on what is most impactful for the business and thoughtful about how and when to partner with others.
- Accountability: Hold self and others accountable to meet commitments and drive results. Accept responsibility for successes and failures.
- Speed: Execute with agility and urgency. Act promptly, decisively, and without delay. Make good and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward.
- Talkdesker: YOU!
We are looking for an experienced Director of Release Management to lead and uplevel our release practices for a growing suite of SaaS products. This senior leadership role will be responsible for defining and implementing scalable release strategies, driving automation and efficiency, and ensuring the seamless deployment of software to production environments. The ideal candidate has 10+ years of experience in release management, a strong background in SaaS operations, and a proven ability to lead cross-functional teams at scale.
Key Responsibilities- Define and execute a holistic release management strategy that aligns with business goals, ensuring reliable and high-quality software delivery.
- Lead and mentor a team of three release managers, fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and operational excellence.
- Develop and maintain a multi-product release calendar, coordinating release cycles across global teams to optimize delivery cadence and minimize downtime.
- Oversee the design and improvement of CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation frameworks, enhancing speed, reliability, and security.
- Collaborate with senior leaders across Product, Engineering, and Operations to define release policies, manage dependencies, and address risks proactively.
- Drive the adoption of metrics-driven practices by defining and monitoring release performance KPIs, such as lead times, failure rates, and mean time to recovery.
- Lead release readiness reviews and post-mortems, continuously improving processes to increase efficiency and reduce risk.
- Own change management processes, ensuring compliance with security and regulatory requirements while maintaining operational flexibility.
- Represent Release Management in executive planning sessions, communicating roadmap milestones, risks, and opportunities for improvement.
- Partner with DevOps and infrastructure teams to improve scalability, performance, and reliability.
- Work with engineering and product team to define a Release Tracking structure and cadence
- Partner with professional services, customers success, product, and engineering team to define a process for Customer Bug/Defect Tracking to impact defect burn down
- Establish portfolio wide process to Dependency Management. Work with product and engineering to drive the dependency tracking between projects
- Customer Commitment Management: Track the customer commitments and ensure they are delivered in time
- 10+ years of release management experience, with at least 5 years in a leadership role within a SaaS company.
- Proven track record of leading complex, multi-product release programs at an enterprise scale.
- Extensive experience with Agile, DevOps, and CI/CD frameworks in cloud-based environments.
- Deep understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
- Experience with containerization and orchestration tools (Docker, Kubernetes).
- Advanced knowledge of CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitLab, Azure DevOps, or similar).
- Familiarity with automation and scripting languages (Python, Shell scripting).
- Exceptional strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, with a focus on operational excellence and continuous improvement.
- Outstanding communication and collaboration skills, capable of influencing at all levels of the organization.
- Proven ability to build and manage high-performing teams and foster a culture of innovation.
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; Master’s degree preferred.
- Experience with SaaS solutions for enterprise customers.
- Certifications in Agile, DevOps, or ITIL frameworks (e.g., SAFe, AWS DevOps Engineer).
- Experience with scaling release processes in a global, distributed environment.
Work Environment and Physical Requirements:
Primarily office-environment work, extended periods of sitting or standing, computer-based work. Limited lifting, and equipment usage limited to computer-related equipment (keyboards, mouse, etc.)
The Talkdesk story hinges on empathy and acceptance. It is the shared goal among all Talkdeskers to empower a new kind of customer hero through our innovative software solution, and we firmly believe that the best path to success for our mission is inclusivity, diversity, and genuine acceptance. To that end, we will hire, promote, work along, cheer for, bond with, and warmly welcome into the Talkdesk family all persons without regard to ethnic and racial identity, indigenous heritage, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status.Top Skills
What We Do
Talkdesk is a global customer experience leader for customer-obsessed companies. Our contact center solution provides a better way for businesses and customers to engage with one another. Our speed of innovation and global footprint reflect our commitment to ensure businesses everywhere can deliver better customer experiences through any channel, resulting in higher customer satisfaction, cost savings and profitability. Talkdesk CX Cloud is an end-to-end customer experience solution that combines enterprise scale with consumer simplicity. Over 1,800 innovative companies around the world, including IBM, Acxiom, Trivago, and Fujitsu partner with Talkdesk to deliver a better way to great customer experience. Learn more and request a demo at www.talkdesk.com.
