Manager, Software Release Management

Welcome to the intersection of energy and home services. At NRG, we’re driven by our passion to create a smarter, cleaner and more connected future.

Vivint Smart Home, an NRG owned company, is a leading smart home company in the United States, dedicated to redefining the home experience with intelligent products and services. We find purpose in proactively protecting and keeping our customers connected to home, no matter where they are. Join the Smart Home team to create smarter, safer and more sustainable homes.

Summary

As Vivint Smart Home continues to scale across cloud, mobile, embedded, and firmware product lines, release operations have become a critical lever for delivery speed, platform reliability, and customer trust. We are seeking a Manager, Release Management, to lead the strategy, execution, and continuous evolution of release operations across this full portfolio.

This role operates at the intersection of technical delivery and organizational leadership. You will build and develop a high-performing Release Management function, drive alignment across Engineering, Quality Engineering (QE), Vertical Quality Leads (VQL), Product, Program, DevOps, and Operations, and ensure every release is governed, executed, and delivered with rigor and consistency.

You will balance process discipline with agility—leveraging CI/CD maturity, automation, and evidence-based decision making to improve release velocity, reduce risk, and strengthen operational confidence across all product domains.

Key Responsibilities

1. Team Leadership: Build the function, grow the talent

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Release Managers supporting multiple engineering groups
• Create role clarity, strong operating rhythms, and consistent execution standards across the team
• Build organizational capability through mentoring, performance management, and career development, while fostering a culture of accountability, urgency, collaboration, and continuous improvement

2. Cross-Functional Execution: Team One for release delivery

• Partner closely with Engineering, QE, VQL, Product, Program, DevOps, Operations, and Support to drive aligned, coordinated release execution
• Create a shared release operating cadence that brings clarity to priorities, risks, dependencies, and readiness across teams
• Ensure stakeholders are aligned early, escalations are surfaced quickly, and release decisions are made with the right level of visibility and accountability

3. Release Governance: Clear standards, stronger decisions

• Establish and scale release governance, standards, policies, and best practices across product and engineering teams
• Define release readiness criteria, checkpoints, approval workflows, and standard artifacts that improve consistency and auditability
• Guide Go/No-Go decisions with clear, risk-based recommendations grounded in scope health, quality signals, dependency status, and operational readiness

4. Integrated Planning: One portfolio, multiple release domains

• Oversee release calendars, milestone planning, dependency tracking, and integrated schedules across cloud, mobile, embedded, and firmware delivery streams
• Support release planning by aligning timing, sequencing, capacity, and organizational interdependencies
• Ensure release plans include quality validation, environment readiness, launch coordination, rollback strategies, and support preparedness — so releases are ready operationally, not just technically

5. Risk Management & Escalation: No surprises in the critical path

• Identify, assess, and manage release risks, dependencies, and operational constraints across a complex portfolio
• Drive proactive mitigation planning throughout the release lifecycle, not just at the end
• Serve as a senior escalation point for critical blockers, quality concerns, timeline risks, and deployment issues — helping teams navigate trade-offs quickly while protecting customer experience, business commitments, and platform stability

6. Metrics & Visibility: From release status to release intelligence

• Define and operationalize release health metrics, KPIs, and dashboards that provide meaningful visibility into release performance
• Measure and report on outcomes such as on-time delivery, deployment failures, release confidence, change failure rate, rollback rates, production incidents, MTTR, and deployment automation coverage
• Improve executive reporting with clear status, actionable risk views, and trend-based insights that support better planning and decision-making

7. Operational Excellence & CI/CD Maturity: Manual effort → scalable release systems

• Drive continuous improvement in release processes, tooling, and automation to improve speed, reliability, and efficiency
• Partner with engineering and platform teams to advance CI/CD maturity, reduce manual release overhead, and strengthen deployment practices
• Standardize release workflows across the portfolio — from frequent cloud deployments to coordinated mobile launches to controlled embedded/firmware releases — adapting where domain differences matter
• Automate where practical and eliminate recurring sources of friction that create delay, confusion, or release instability
• Lead post-release reviews, retrospectives, and root cause analysis; use data, trends, and team feedback to strengthen planning, governance, and execution every cycle

How You’ll Measure Success (KPIs)

• On-time release delivery: % of releases shipped on or before the committed date — trending up across all release domains
• Deployment failure & rollback rate: % of deployments requiring rollback or emergency intervention — trending down
• Release cycle time: time from code complete to production — reduced without eroding reliability or customer experience
• Change failure rate (CFR): % of releases causing production incidents — trending down
• Mean time to recovery (MTTR): time from release-related incident to resolution — trending down
• Release readiness compliance: % of releases meeting all governance checkpoints before deployment — trending up
• Deployment automation coverage: % of release steps automated vs. manual — increasing over time
• Release dashboard signal quality: executive reporting accuracy, dependency transparency, milestone accuracy, and scope-to-outcome traceability — improved quarter over quarter

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years in Release Management, Technical Program Management, or Software Delivery, with 3+ years leading teams in a multi-product software organization
• Proven experience building or scaling a release management function across multiple technology domains (cloud, mobile, embedded, firmware)
• Track record managing and developing a team of 5–10 Release Managers, including coaching, performance management, and career development
• Strong expertise in release governance, readiness frameworks, Go/No-Go decision-making, and risk/escalation management across complex delivery environments
• Working knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, deployment orchestration, and modern release automation practices
• Experience defining release health metrics, KPIs, and dashboards that drive decision quality and operational visibility
• Proven ability to drive aligned execution across Engineering, QE, Product, Program, DevOps, and Operations boundaries
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications & Credentials

• Experience supporting mixed release domains across SaaS/cloud, native mobile, connected devices, and firmware
• Track record improving CI/CD maturity, deployment automation, and release tooling at scale
• Proficiency with Jira, Confluence, Smartsheet, Tableau, or similar release planning and reporting platforms
• Experience in consumer technology, IoT, or device-cloud ecosystems
• Working knowledge of incident management, change control, and operational compliance in production environments
• Familiarity with AI-assisted release practices (automated change impact analysis, intelligent deployment gating, predictive risk scoring)
• Agile, SAFe, PMP, or Lean Six Sigma certifications are a plus

Ways of Working

• Servant-leader first: builds trust, accountability, and psychological safety while holding a high bar for execution quality; creates an environment where Release Managers grow, take ownership, and challenge the status quo
• Communicates to the audience translates release complexity into crisp executive summaries for leadership and into actionable plans for delivery teams; no one leaves a conversation unclear on status, risk, or next steps
• Leads through influence, not authority: creates alignment across teams with different priorities, delivery models, and technical constraints; earns credibility through consistency, follow-through, and sound judgment
• Balances speed with stability: ensures release processes enable the business to move fast without compromising reliability or customer experience; knows when to push and when to protect
• Runs a disciplined operating cadence: release planning, risk and dependency reviews, release readiness checkpoints, and post-release retrospectives — each with clear inputs, outputs, and owners
• Partners with stakeholders to ensure release decisions are evidence-based, quality signals are trusted, and governance is shared — not siloed

NRG Energy is committed to a drug and alcohol-free workplace. To the extent permitted by law and any applicable collective bargaining agreement, employees are subject to periodic random drug testing, and post-accident and reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing. EOE AA M/F/Vet/Disability. Level, Title and/or Salary may be adjusted based on the applicant's experience or skills.

Official description on file with Talent.

We support the use of AI tools to help you prepare for your interview (e.g., practicing responses, researching the role, or refining your resume). However, during interviews and assessments, we expect responses to reflect your own thinking, experience, and communication. Use of AI to generate or read answers in real time, complete assessments, or misrepresent your qualifications is not permitted and may impact your candidacy.