CDP Release Specialist

Role Overview

The CDP Release Specialist will collaborate closely with the Release Lead to manage the daily coordination of releases across Common Digital Platform (CDP) applications. This position ensures that all releases are meticulously planned, reviewed, scheduled, validated, and executed according to the defined release and change management protocols.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage and coordinate daily release activities for CDP applications and projects.
• Assess application release plans to verify that required information, dependencies, schedules, and tasks are clearly outlined.
• Synchronize individual project release timelines with the overarching Master Release Calendar, flagging any conflicts or interdependencies.
• Evaluate and approve release readiness for UAT, Staging, and pre-production environments within governance guidelines.
• Critically review deployment plans, release documentation, implementation steps, rollback procedures, and validation processes to comply with standards.
• Ensure release teams fulfill all release gates and readiness criteria before advancing through environments.
• Use JIRA and other release management tools to monitor release activities, dependencies, risks, issues, and approvals.
• Track adherence to release processes; identify and document any release protocol exceptions or violations.
• Provide detailed release violation and compliance reports to the Release Lead for reporting and process enhancement.
• Work collaboratively with Development, QA, DevOps, Change Management, and project teams to resolve release challenges and guarantee timely execution.
• Assist in release deployment and validate post-release outcomes, including deployment status coordination and verification of successful deployments.
• Conduct training sessions to raise release process awareness among project and technology teams.
• Maintain comprehensive release documentation, approvals, records, and audit trails.
• Help prepare release dashboards, key performance indicators (KPIs), status updates, and performance reports.
• Identify frequent release obstacles and suggest process, automation, or operational improvements.

Experience & Skills

• Experience in roles such as Release Management, Release Coordination, IT Operations, DevOps, or Application Support.
• Proficient with React.js for front-end development.
• Skilled in Node.js back-end development.
• Knowledgeable in deployment and configuration on Microsoft Azure Cloud platform.
• Solid grasp of application development, testing, deployment, and release lifecycles.
• Familiarity with UAT, Stage, and Production environment release procedures.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, automated deployments, and application deployment methodologies.
• Hands-on experience using JIRA and release/change management platforms.
• Ability to review deployment plans, release notes, implementation strategies, and rollback methods.
• Preferred: Understanding ITIL change management frameworks and Change Advisory Board (CAB) processes.
• Strong coordination and communication capabilities for collaboration across multiple technical teams.
• Meticulous attention to detail with an ability to manage several concurrent releases and associated dependencies.
• Adept at spotting release readiness gaps, risks, and process violations and escalating them appropriately.

Key Success Criteria

• Ensuring releases are correctly planned, reviewed, and aligned with the Master Release Calendar.
• Consistent adherence to established release gates and governance requirements.
• Prompt identification and reduction of release violations or readiness lapses.
• Accurate, comprehensive documentation and necessary approvals for each release.
• Effective coordination of release activities across UAT, Staging, and production environments.
• Timely, high-quality reporting on release status, compliance, and KPIs.
• Seamless collaboration among Development, QA, DevOps, Change, and project teams.