Release Manager

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

As a Release Manager, you will be an integral part of the team that enables Nike to bring its world-class products and experiences to market. You will work across a number of capabilities to understand portfolio roadmaps, programs, and key value drops. In true Nike fashion, you will partner closely with teams including program, product, engineering, release engineering, and quality to not only execute releases, but continually improve process, achieve efficiencies, and deliver a quality product timely. This role is located at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR and is not remote eligible.

WHAT WILL YOU WORK ON

The Release Manager will work alongside stakeholders to collaborate on direction, strategy, planning, prioritization, and ongoing drive of the global change & release framework. You will report to the Director of Peak Event Management (Supply Chain & Planning Technology) The Release Manager is also responsible for driving operational strategies, including:  

• Driving effective release framework and governance with a continuous delivery mindset across multiple teams and geographies 

• Manage all change activity from planning through testing, to deployment  

• Develop risk management and contingency planning for releases of any size 

• Work with Support and Operation teams to ensure operational readiness  

• Communicate effectively at multiple levels within the organization through written and verbal communication, both formal and informal 

• Drive to a global release cadence that defines the cycles, structures, and required oversight to deliver products and experiences to production 

• Define and publish key metrics that demonstrate the effectiveness of releases as well as areas of improvement for the Release management framework 

• Partner closely and continually with product, program, quality, engineering, support, and release teams to align on scope, release cadence, delivery and support requirements 

• Partner with the business and IT stakeholders to drive release scheduling decisions 

• Provide status reports to key internal/external stakeholders  

• Manage go/no-go, checkpoint, and retrospective meetings with release stakeholders 

• Participate in Capability Stand Ups and PI Planning sessions to determine and plan for upcoming release scope. 

• Identify and drive retrospective items to completion. 

 
WHO WILL YOU WORK WITH? 

You will partner with Global Technology teams to cultivate collaboration, alignment and integrated planning and execution across all functions. You will have close partnership with the Portfolio, Product, Technology and Strategy functions. You will work closely to coordinate with other Technology teams on dependencies for cross-functional deployments. 

CRITICAL SKILLS  

• Functional expertise in driving change and delivering high quality results. 

• Experience with Commerce and Mobile Commerce platforms.  

• Demonstrable experience operating in a complex, federated global organization with a geographically dispersed team. 

• Experience improving CI/CD tools integration and release operations ensuring quality deployments. 

• Experience at developing risk management and contingency planning for production changes 

• Successful track record of applying operational readiness techniques to complex feature implementations  

• Successful track record of partnership across organizations to build trust and achieve shared goals. 

• Good communications and presentation skills. Able to communicate sophisticated and technical issues effectively and concisely to leadership. 

• High professional standards and expectations for self and others. 

• Professional stature and gravitas to collaborate with and influence team members with credibility and confidence. 

WHAT YOU BRING TO NIKE 

• Bachelor’s degree in Technology, Business, Engineering, or a related field; or combination of relevant education, experience.
• A deep understanding and practical application of standard release process(s), agile methodologies, and technical capabilities (including agile - lean, continuous delivery, SAFE, ITIL) 
• Experience working with teams who use development and deployment automation tools in the software development and deployment lifecycle  

• Strong relationship-building skills and experience working closely with leaders and cross-functional partners to deliver key strategic initiatives. 

• Strong interpersonal skills with the ability to motivate and influence others, negotiate during situational conflict, and establish the best forward path in the face of competing points of view. 

• Ability to deal with ambiguity and work in a dynamic, results-oriented matrixed environment. 

• Experience with tools such as JIRA, Confluence, ServiceNow 

We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive environment for all employees and job applicants. We offer a number of accommodations to complete our interview process including screen readers, sign language interpreters, accessible and single location for in-person interviews, closed captioning, and other reasonable modifications as needed. If you discover, as you navigate our application process, that you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please complete the Candidate Accommodation Request Form.