Enterprise Release Manager

JOB SUMMARY
The Enterprise Release Manager serves as the single point of accountability for enterprise-wide software releases and Agile execution across the Guidewire Cloud platform and all other applications and technologies, including digital, data, and integration ecosystems. This role combines Release Management and Agile Release Management disciplines to ensure predictable, high-quality, compliant delivery of business capabilities for Policy, Billing, Claims, and TPA operations across all underlying technologies. Operating within a commercial insurance carrier and TPA environment, the Enterprise Release Manager partners with IT, Product, QA, Infrastructure, Security, Operations, and external vendors to plan, coordinate, govern, and execute releases while continuously improving delivery flow, quality, and operational resilience.

Key Responsibilities
- Enterprise Release Management (ITIL / DevSecOps Alignment): Own and govern the enterprise release calendar across all Guidewire Cloud applications and dependent systems. Plan, coordinate, and execute production, pre-production, and non-production releases. Ensure end-to-end release readiness, including code freeze enforcement, environment readiness, test completion, and Go/No-Go decision facilitation. Coordinate release communications, deployment runbooks, release notes, and business impact summaries. Ensure adherence to change management, audit, and compliance requirements.
- Guidewire Cloud, Azure Integration, Azure/Fabric Data Lake & Environment Orchestration: Coordinate with vendors and internal teams on cloud environment strategy, including Dev, SIT, UAT, Training, Pre-Prod, and Production environments. Manage environment availability, sequencing, and refresh planning, and support parallel releases and hotfixes. Oversee release sequencing across upgrades, changes, integrations, and data pipelines. Ensure alignment between cloud release cycles and enterprise Agile delivery cadence.
- Vendor & Partner Coordination: Act as the primary release and delivery coordination point between internal teams and external partners. Ensure vendor deliverables align with PI objectives, release scope commitments, and quality and security standards. Facilitate cross-vendor dependency resolution and delivery alignment.
- Governance, Risk, and Quality Management: Establish and maintain release governance standards, including entry/exit criteria, quality gates, and escalation paths. Partner with QA and Test Leads to ensure adequate test coverage, defect triage, risk-based release decisions, and production validation. Lead post-release reviews and continuous improvement initiatives.
- Metrics, Reporting, and Continuous Improvement: Define and report on release performance metrics, such as release predictability, PI objective achievement, defect leakage, and deployment success rates. Use metrics to drive flow optimization, capacity planning, and systemic improvements. Champion DevSecOps and Agile best practices.

Required Qualifications
- Experience: 8-12+ years of progressive IT delivery experience, including Enterprise Release Management, large-scale Agile program delivery, and complex, multi-system enterprise platforms.
- Direct experience supporting Guidewire, Azure, and Fabric Cloud implementations or operations in a production insurance environment.
- Experience in commercial insurance and/or TPA operations.
- Agile & Release Expertise: Strong working knowledge of Agile, Scrum, and Kanban at scale; ITIL Release & Change Management; DevSecOps pipelines and CI/CD concepts.
- Technical & Domain Knowledge: Familiarity with Guidewire Cloud release models and environment management; enterprise integrations, data pipelines, and downstream reporting; Azure or comparable cloud platforms; Jira, Azure DevOps, or similar Agile lifecycle tools.

Preferred Qualifications
- SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE)
- SAFe Agilist (SA)
- ITIL Foundation or higher
- PMP or equivalent delivery certification

Certifications
- SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE)
- SAFe Agilist (SA)
- ITIL Foundation or higher
- PMP or equivalent delivery certification (optional)