Release Lead

At Dyson, we demand the highest standard of performance from the technologies we engineer. Our people expect the same from the technology that supports them. We are a community that appreciates and advocates better engineering. A community of pioneers. 
Dyson IT are mid-transformation. Our aim, to create robust IT architecture, to manage data effectively and efficiently and continue to grow our world-class team. A team who is strategic, enabling business acceleration, growth and success.
We have end to end accountability for the design, delivery and support of all business systems enabling Dysons global commercial, operational and enterprise business process in 82 markets. The team is arranged into investment areas including Commercial & Connectivity, Retail, Supply Chain & Manufacturing, Product Development, Corporate – and many others.

Working in a DevOps environment the Release Lead provides leadership in planning; scheduling, coordinating and approval management for all production releases in Group IT Application Services. Supporting all Dyson markets globally, they manage releases across the application, environments and quality gates e.g. Release Validation, CAB’s and technical cutover plans.
Key accountabilities include:

• Release Management
• Chair delivery meetings with the Development, DevOps, QA and Environment Management resources, ensuring all changes align to planned releases.
• Maintain and manage the release schedule and cadence for certain IT platforms.
• Provide high level governance of release track environments to make sure ‘route to live’ is always available.
• Communicate release details and schedules to the Business and 3rd parties involved.
• Work with test leads, delivery leads and Project managers to align projects and planned changes with scheduled releases.
• Schedule resources for live deployment activities including any 3rd parties.
• Liaise with Group IT CAB members to manage release content, ensuring dependencies and priorities are clearly understood and communicated appropriately to impacted stakeholders.
• Organize and host Go/No-go Meetings to make sure releases are fully signed off and can go into Production and are stable.
• Conduct release-related Post Implementation Reviews where rollbacks are required or where high priority issues occured caused by planned releases.
• Communicate outcomes of live deployments and implementation of new features/capabilities within IT platforms to the Business and 3rd parties involved.
• Provide an on-going assessment of release performance and apply continuous improvement action as necessary across the end-to-end release lifecycle. 
• Provide subject matter expertise on release management across Group IT and internal/external stakeholders

Leadership

• Apply release management principles and mentor staff across Group IT to continually improve the release management capability.
• Establish priorities (and lead without direct authority) to ensure the release management function will meet or exceed project and programme timescales.
• Identify, influence and lead the implementation of best practice initiatives that improve on the efficiency and effectiveness of the release management function.
• Provide open and honest feedback to peers and seniors that will constructively aid the achievement of release management and Group IT goals.
• Maintain knowledge on current and emerging developments and influence Group IT leadership on improvements for current and future ways of working.

We're looking for someone with:

• Strong change and release management skills, in a continuous delivery environment.
• Ability to direct release management principles that meet the quality and timescale objectives for delivery into production.
• Excellent knowledge of risk management and risk mitigation.
• A proven background in release management, change management or service transition.
• Accredited professional e.g. iTIL or similar.

Desirable skills:

• Experience using the Atlassian suite. 
• Key experience required:
• Proven experience of leading, coaching and mentoring people in change or release management principles.
• Significant project lifecycle experience in multiple disciplines such as QA, business analysis, change management and project management.
• Experience with DevOps software development methodologies.

Key attributes:

• Highly creative. Able to produce creative solutions from basic concepts.
• Ability to anticipate change and adapt quickly.
• Strong attention to detail; ability to perform duties with a high level of accuracy.
• Be able to think holistically and analytically and know when to take which approach.
• Have a clearly methodical approach.
• Exceptional aptitude for problem solving and follow through.
• Be capable of visualising a problem context/situation, develop a number of resolution options and think them through from concept to implementation.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with excellent communication skills and customer facing skills, ability to communicate complex ideas simply at all levels of the organisation.

• Competitive starting salary: from PLN 181,300 annually (for a full-time position), with potential for a higher offer based on skills and experience

• Performance bonus opportunity

• Employee Capital Plan (PPK)

• Employee Savings Plan (PPO)

• Company-paid life insurance

• Holiday allowance

• Allowance for corrective glasses and contact lenses

• Subsidised on-site canteen

• Exclusive discount on Dyson products

• Comprehensive private medical insurance

• Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

• Benefits platform with Multisport card

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Dyson is an equal opportunity employer. We know that great minds don’t think alike, and it takes all kinds of minds to make our technology so unique. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and employment decisions are made without regard to race, colour, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, protected veteran status or other any other dimension of diversity.