JOB SUMMARY:

The Release Manager plays a pivotal role in orchestrating the delivery of new capabilities and enhancements for the VA Profile application, a centralized Master Data Management (MDM) system that aggregates and synchronizes Veteran contact and preference information across VA systems U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. This system resides in AWS GovCloud West and ensures a unified 360° view of Veteran data for internal and partner systems. The role ensures smooth, compliant, and secure delivery of software releases that support VA’s mission and privacy mandates.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field (or equivalent experience).
• 4+ years as a Release Manager, Release Engineer, or similar role within cloud-based and compliance-heavy environments.
• Hands-on experience managing release pipelines in AWS (preferably GovCloud), including IaC and CI/CD.
• Strong understanding of VA privacy and data governance standards, especially regarding PII (data minimization, retention, and secure disposal) as described in the VA Profile PIA U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs+1.
• Experience coordinating multiple stakeholders, managing release approvals, and working with governance or audit teams.
• Competence in planning, risk analysis, rollback execution, and incident response associated with releases.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Prior experience in federal IT systems, especially those involving MDM, enterprise identity, or data synchronization.
• Familiarity with FISMA, FedRAMP, VA Directive 6500, and ATO processes.
• Exposure to DevOps practices, Observability integrations, and automated release validation.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to facilitate cross-team alignment in mission-critical environments focused on Veteran experience.

• Release Planning & Coordination
• Develop and manage release schedules, coordinating well-defined windows for development, testing, staging, and production deployment.
• Align release timelines with stakeholder needs—from technical leads, DevOps, QA, privacy officers, to governance teams.
• Governance & Compliance Management
• Ensure each release adheres to VA governance and privacy controls derived from the PIA (e.g., AR-1, DM-2, DI-1, DI-2) related to data quality, retention, minimization, and secure disposal U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs+1.
• Coordinate documentation, approvals, and audit evidence supporting Authority to Operate (ATO), PIA updates, and privacy compliance.
• Pipeline & Environment Oversight
• Oversee CI/CD pipelines supporting AWS GovCloud West deployments via Infrastructure as Code (e.g., CloudFormation, Terraform) and ensure clear separation of testing, staging, and production environments.
• Risk & Change Management
• Conduct release risk assessments to identify potential impacts—technical, operational, privacy-related—and coordinate mitigations.
• Facilitate change control board (CCB) processes, ensuring stakeholder alignment and minimizing disruption to service.
• Deployment & Rollback Execution
• Lead scripted and automated deployments across environments.
• Manage rollback plans and readiness, and conduct post-deployment validation (smoke tests, functionality verification, and privacy checks).
• Monitoring & Post-Release Validation
• Collaborate with Observability teams (Dynatrace, AppDynamics, CloudWatch) to track post-release performance, service availability, and compliance metrics.
• Ensure that PIA-relevant data handling processes, such as proper retention and disposal, are enforced post-deployment.
• Communication & Stakeholder Management
• Provide clear, timely updates to all stakeholders (e.g., developers, security/privacy officers, system owners) before, during, and after each release.
• Serve as the main point of contact for release-related inquiries and cross-functional coordination.