DevOps Release Engineer

Quality Gold, Inc. is a family-owned global company founded in 1979. We are headquartered in Fairfield, Ohio, and operate within the United States, Canada, and India. As a wholesale distributor and manufacturer, we offer more than 165,000 jewelry and gift products that are available to ship same day, and more than 150,000 items available via special order. We actively serve more than 15,000 retailers across the United States, its territories, and Canada. At Quality Gold, we're not just about delivering high-quality solutions and services in the jewelry wholesale industry - we're about growth and innovation. As a company that's constantly expanding, we're at the forefront of technology, providing cutting-edge services to our ever-growing clientele. Our business has been built on a commitment to provide the largest selection of products, the best service, and the best value to our customers. We're looking for energetic and dedicated team players to contribute to our upward trajectory and play a key role in our journey towards even greater success. BENEFITS: We offer a comprehensive benefits package that includes the following: Medical, dental, and vision insurance, company-paid life insurance, and short/long-term disability insurance are all available to you on the first month following your start date. Over two weeks of Paid Time Off (PTO) that starts accruing on your first day of employment and increases after six years of service. Company 401(K) program with company matching that you are eligible to participate in the first month following three months of employment. Profit sharing, supplemental insurance, adoption assistance, employee discount, referral program, employee assistance program, and more! SUMMARY: The DevOps Release Engineer will take ownership of code review, release management, and production deployments across our enterprise application environment, while also building out the tooling and processes that make the pipeline more reliable and efficient over time. This position serves as the checkpoint between development and production; reviewing code changes, coordinating and executing releases, and maintaining the health of our source control and deployment processes. The role works closely with our programming team and IT leadership and has no direct reports. Beyond day-to-day release management, this is an opportunity to modernize how we build, test, and deploy changes - introducing automation, standardized branching and release procedures, and improved tooling where gaps exist. The role also owns environment management. Keeping our development, test, and production environments current, consistent with one another, and ready for the team to use is a core responsibility. Equally important is communication: this person is a direct point of contact for the business and application leadership who sponsor the changes being released, and is expected to clearly tell them what is going out, when, what changed, and what to expect.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

Review code changes submitted by the development team for quality, completeness, and adherence to established coding standards prior to merge. Manage and execute the promotion of code changes from development through testing and into production across our COBOL, C#.NET/WinForms, and SQL Server environments. Administer and maintain our Bitbucket repositories, including branching strategy, permissions, merge policies, and repository health. Support developers using TortoiseGit and Bitbucket in their day-to-day version control workflows. Own environment management across development, test, and production - ensuring environments are current, consistent with one another, refreshed on a known schedule, and documented. Keep non-production environments aligned with production, including code levels, database schema and reference data, configuration, and integration endpoints. Coordinate release schedules and deployment windows with the development team and business stakeholders to minimize disruption. Communicate release schedules and development windows with the development team and business stakeholders to minimize disruption. Communicate release plans, schedules, contents, and outcomes to application owners and company leadership in language that a non-technical stakeholder can act on. Provide clear, timely communication when a deployment encounters problems, including business impact, current status, and expected resolution. Maintain and improve build, deployment, and rollback procedures, including documentation of current processes. Identify gaps in our current deployment and release tooling and propose, build, and implement improvements (for example, automation scripts, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment checklists). Monitor deployments for issues and coordinate rollback or remediation when necessary. Maintain change logs, release notes, and deployment records for audit and troubleshooting purposes. Partner with the Senior Technical Project Manager and development team to align release timing with project milestones. Perform scheduled releases outside of standard business hours, including occasional evenings and weekends, and respond when a deployment issue requires attention. Must work on-site in Fairfield, OH, one or more days a week to meet the demands of the position and business needs. Regular attendance and compliance with the Company's handbook policies and procedures.

TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT:

Quality Gold's application environment supports manufacturing, inventory, purchasing, pricing, order processing, fulfillment, shipping, accounting, reporting, and external business partners. It includes: Bitbucket for source control, with TortoiseGit as the primary client for developers. C#.NET/WinForms applications. Microsoft SQL Server. Long-standing COBOL-based legacy systems. A largely manual release and deployment process, with meaningful room to introduce modern automation and tooling. Separate development, test, and production environments that are currently maintained and refreshed manually. This is a hands-on technical role. Candidates should be comfortable working directly in code repositories and with production deployment processes, though this is not primarily a software development position. SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES: This position has no direct supervisory responsibilities. To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below represent the knowledge, skill, and ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. COMPETENCIES: Strong attention to detail, documentation habits, and the ability to work independently. Demonstrated ability to communicate technical release information to non-technical business and leadership audiences, both in writing and verbally. Demonstrates expertise in Git-based source control systems and promotes consistent development practices through effective repository management. Identifies, analyzes, and resolves technical issues impacting deployments, environments, and release processes. Continuously seeks opportunities to improve efficiency, reliability, and consistency through automation and standardization. Maintains stable, consistent, and reliable development, test, and production environments. Builds productive working relationships across development, project management, IT, and business teams while coordinating work without direct authority. Maintains a high level of accuracy in code reviews, deployments, documentation, and configuration management. Accepts responsibility for release outcomes, environment stability, and deployment success. Demonstrates the ability to learn new technologies, tools and processes while adapting to changing business and technical needs. Identifies, evaluates, and mitigates risks associated with releases, deployments, and production environments. Creates and maintains accurate technical documentation to support operational excellence and knowledge sharing. PHYSICAL DEMANDS: Ability to sit for prolonged periods while working on a computer. Frequent use of a keyboard, mouse, and computer monitors. Ability to communicate effectively via telephone, video conferencing, and in-person meetings. Ability to move throughout the office, warehouse and data centers.

WORK ENVIRONMENT:

This position primarily operates in an office environment and may require occasional access to server rooms and technical infrastructure areas. Individuals working in the "secure area" must follow the Company's Secure Area Dress Code and Security policies and procedures. All clothing must be free from metal, and no metal may be worn into the secure area of the building. Any metal inside or outside the body due to a medical condition must be visually inspected, or reasonable accommodations may be made.

POSITION TYPE AND EXPECTED HOURS OF WORK:

This is a full-time, exempt position. Standard business hours are generally Monday through Friday; however, the position requires flexibility to conduct scheduled releases outside normal business hours, including occasional evenings and weekends. Availability to respond to critical deployment issues is required. TRAVEL: Negligible REQUIRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: Three or more years of experience in a release engineering, DevOps, Build/deployment, or related software delivery role. Working experience with Git-based version control systems (Bitbucket and/or similar); TortoiseGit experience a plus. Experience reviewing code for quality and adherence to standards prior to release. Experience managing or executing production deployments and releases in a business-critical environment. Familiarity with relational databases (Microsoft SQL Server) and the ability to review or coordinate database-related changes as part of a release. Experience owning or maintaining multiple application environments and keeping non-production environments current. PREFERRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE: Experience with C#.NET / WinForms applications. Exposure, or willingness to learn, COBOL-based legacy systems. Experience designing, building, or implementing CI/CD pipelines or deployment automation. Experience supporting a mixed legacy and modern application environment. Scripting experience (PowerShell, Bash, or similar) for build and deployment automation. Experience with database change management or schema deployment tooling. Experience building or maintaining environment refresh, data masking, or test-data processes for non-production environments. Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER STATEMENT

Quality Gold, Inc. prohibits discrimination and harassment of its employees or applicants based on a person's age, disability, gender, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, race, color, religion, veteran status, marital status, genetic information, or any other protected group status. Quality Gold participates in the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration's E-Verify program. E-Verify OTHER DUTIES: This job description is not intended to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of the employee's activities, duties, or responsibilities. Other duties, responsibilities, and activities may change or be assigned at any time with or without notice. QUALITY GOLD OF CINCINNATI INC