Release Manager

Role: Software Release Manager

Location: Leeds

Hybrid: 3 days in the office

Contract: Permanent

ABOUT OUR COMPANY

At MICHELIN Connected Fleet, a division of the Michelin Group, leaders in sustainable mobility for 130 years, we specialise in connected fleet management services and solutions. We are a market leader with over 30 years expertise in a high-growth and competitive mobility tech industry. Today we work with 70,000 customers and over 600,000 vehicles globally, growing more than 10% per year, and entering on average 3 new markets a year. Backed by Michelin Group and operating under the Michelin Connected Fleet name, we will be a major player in this market in the coming years.

OUR DREAM

We know our planet is at risk and we urgently need to find innovative ways to protect it. At Michelin, pioneering is what we do: We are innovating constantly, to explore new opportunities, with, around and beyond tires to lead the way in sustainable mobility. Our people act for change, with respect, and as leaders. We care about giving people a better way forward.

Our dream is rooted in a single purpose: by 2050, Michelin will be recognised as a critical innovation leader that helped humanity conquer new frontiers. And we all work hard every day to realise this dream.

OUR PEOPLE & WAYS OF WORKING

At MICHELIN Connected Fleet, agility is not a word - it’s a lifestyle. We gather entrepreneurial minds who are not afraid to fail fast and learn quickly, every day. We think long term and act short term, we grow fast and love what we do. We believe in an inclusive working environment, building teams with a variety of backgrounds, skills, views and opinions. Among our 400 employees in Europe, we proudly benefit from around 30 nationalities. We thrive because of the diverse background and talent of our people. We nurture our team's growth with several companywide development programs - including our Diversity, Mentoring and Sustainability programs.

Product leadership and innovation is a key driver for MCF’s business, and we have a track record of investing in R&D and technical talent.

The technology stack spans automotive grade IoT embedded devices, high performance and high availability IoT server platform processing and storing data, and a suite of front-end SaaS based applications providing visualisations, reporting, analytics and enterprise integration. Our hosting is hybrid, using dedicated private cloud infrastructure as well as leading edge PaaS providers such as AWS.

We also have a progressive approach to our development model and tools, constantly investing to improve our velocity and release cadence.

We are looking for a Release Manager to help shape and drive the future of R&D and our products. This role will suit an experienced & enthusiastic Release Manager wanting to work within an exciting and evolving environment producing Enterprise Grade applications and solutions.

WHAT WILL I BE DOING:

• Working alongside international Agile Squads to ensure that the new features are incrementally deployed and released as part of the global MCF system.
• Following industry-standard Continuous Delivery guidance and best practices
• Planning and Scheduling all releases with Specialism Leads/Component Owners and communicating with all stakeholders
• Working with the Test & Release Manager and Squads operating in different timezones to anticipate upcoming releases and maintain a plan.
• Own the notification process and implement improvements to support faster releases.
• Understand and manage the impact of deployments on a global customer base, planning a release schedule that minimises customer impact.
• Supervise and participate in out-of-hours releases.
• Work with the Test & Release Manager and TechOps to ensure the adequate resource is available to support out-of-office hours releases.
• Liaise with the Product Managers and Product Owners to ensure What’s New is published where appropriate.
• Maintain a full set of release metrics which can be used to identify areas of improvement.
• Analysing risks and mitigating those risks by planning phased releases with the squads and Test & Release Manager.
• Self-improving skill set and domain knowledge whilst delivering mid to high-complexity tasks
• Share knowledge and improvements with Test & Release Manager, DevOps manager, TechOps manager and squads.
• Working with the DevOps manager to improve the release pipeline and tooling.
• Working continuously to reduce the lead time from QA to Live whilst ensuring we have no release failures
• Working alongside the Service Account Manager to deliver an excellent customer experience and optimise MCF’s NPS performance
• Define and maintain component map highlighting dependencies and release cycle/cadence

TO BE SUCCESSFUL YOU WILL LIKELY HAVE:

• Strong experience of Software Delivery Life Cycles in an Agile Scrum context
• Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines
• Experience leading releases on multiple concurrent workstreams
• Excellent stakeholder management skills & ability to communicate effectively at all levels
• Keen self-improvement attitude and desire to stay up-to-date with the industry
• Good attention to detail
• Experience with service management
• Experience with defect management
• Project management experience, able to manage conflicting priorities

Work-life balance is important to us at Michelin Connected Fleet, so we offer our teams as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust our teams to know how they work best, combining remote and collaborative working, with a flexible approach to hours. This allows our people the time and space for life outside of work.