Release Manager

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end release management process for core banking system changes, including planning, scheduling, and release calendar management.
• Coordinate release activities across development, QA/testing, infrastructure, and business teams to ensure readiness for each release.
• Chair and facilitate Change Advisory Board (CAB) meetings and go/no-go decisions, presenting release readiness, risks, and rollback plans.
• Define and enforce release governance standards, policies, and best practices in line with the bank's change management framework.
• Manage release dependencies across core banking modules (e.g., deposits, loans, account maintenance) and coordinate with vendors for third-party system releases.
• Plan and oversee release windows, including coordination of system downtime, batch/EOD processing impact, and business blackout periods.
• Maintain release documentation, including release notes, deployment plans, rollback procedures, and post-implementation review reports.
• Monitor and manage risks associated with releases, escalating issues and coordinating contingency/rollback actions when required.
• Work closely with test managers to ensure testing sign-off (SIT/UAT) is obtained before release approval.
• Track release metrics (e.g., deployment success rate, rollback frequency, incident-linked releases) and drive continuous improvement in the release process.
• Ensure all releases comply with internal audit, regulatory, and change management requirements (e.g., MAS guidelines on technology risk management).
• Support incident management during and after releases, coordinating with relevant teams to resolve deployment-related issues.

Requirements

• 5–8 years of experience in IT release management, change management, or release/deployment coordination within banking or financial services.
• Proven experience managing releases for core banking systems (e.g., Finacle, Temenos T24/Transact, Flexcube, or similar platforms) is highly preferred.
• Solid understanding of the commercial banking product lifecycle: deposits, loans/credit facilities, trade finance, or cash management.
• Strong knowledge of release and change management frameworks (e.g., ITIL) and the software development lifecycle (Waterfall and/or Agile/DevOps).
• Experience with release/change management tools (e.g., ServiceNow, JIRA, Remedy, or equivalent).
• Familiarity with core banking batch/end-of-day processing cycles and their impact on release scheduling.
• Working knowledge of banking regulatory and technology risk requirements (e.g., MAS TRM guidelines) as they relate to change and release management.
• Exposure to CI/CD tools and deployment automation is an advantage, though not mandatory.
• Strong stakeholder management, communication, and coordination skills, with the ability to manage competing priorities under pressure.