Senior Release Manager

You are as unique as your background, experience and point of view. Here, you'll be encouraged, empowered and challenged to be your best self. You'll work with dynamic colleagues - experts in their fields - who are eager to share their knowledge with you. Your leaders will inspire and help you reach your potential and soar to new heights. Every day, you'll have new and exciting opportunities to make life brighter for our Clients - who are at the heart of everything we do. Discover how you can make a difference in the lives of individuals, families and communities around the world.

Job Description:

The Enterprise Data & Analytics (EDAP) team is at the heart of Sun Life's digital transformation. We drive best-in-class data & analytics capabilities to the business to create better client experiences and business outcomes. Internal marketing communications that promote and advance our products and services are crucial to help drive awareness, investment, and adoption.

We are seeking an experienced communication and change management professional who is passionate about storytelling, creating engaging employee experiences and collaborating with stakeholders to deliver results. The successful candidate will bring a fresh, creative perspective to our work and will apply their skills in a variety of areas including team & key stakeholder communications, internal marketing communications, graphic design & layout, multi-channel marketing, data analysis, reporting, and research. This role reports to the Director, Communications & Creative Services.

What will you do?

• Be accountable of the team's coordination on implementation day, ensuring diligent and efficient resolution of possible last minutes issues
• Develop common strategies for release governance across multiple departments and vendors to ensure there's a proper structure in place to allow different project teams to coordinate releases efficiently
• Identify gaps including any DevOps tools insufficiencies
• Track an enterprise-wide release calendar in partnership with change management
• Measure release cadence and effectiveness
• Create common standards and formats for release playbooks and work with operations to standardize release decision-making
• Define common mechanisms for rollback and standards for capturing release-related performance indicators
• Communicate with delivery leaders, test managers, development managers, and IT operations project and Agile Teams.
• The RM must have the confidence to manage up and provide reporting as well as meeting updates to senior IT management and line of business.
• Development of the Release Management Policy, Standards and processes as well as the integrated release schedules and plans.
• Produce Deployment, Run Books, Implementation Plans and Weekly Release Reporting
• Manage risks and resolves issues that affect release scope, schedule and quality
• Conduct Release Readiness reviews, Milestone Reviews, and Business Go/No-Go reviews
• Govern and help coordinate integrated releases, the number of releases to production will increase with the introduction of Agile and DevOps
• Measure and monitor progress to ensure application releases are delivered on time, within budget and quality
• Work with DevOps Specialist to understand impacts of branches and code merges
• Continually work towards making improvements in the release process
• Develops scripts and automation tools used to build, integrate, and deploy software releases to various platforms
• Assist development team to resolve the build and release issues.
• Coaching teams in effective use in ongoing adoption of build and deployment best practices.
• Assisting with prioritization and resolution of defects/bugs.
• Lead efforts to increase Release automation management.
• Create and manage build and deployment implementation/release plan and schedule.
• Support the application release from end to end to ensure releases are implemented on time and on budget.
• Assume overall responsibility for release package artifacts and delivery.
• Prepare status reports for management and stakeholders

What do you need to succeed?

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to liaise with internal and external stakeholders and adapt approach when dealing with technical and non-technical audiences
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a strong, collaborative multi-site team
• Excellent in organizing, planning and time management skills
• Self-directed and proactive; thinking beyond the immediate problem with ability to analyze situations/problems systematically and deliver effective right-sized solutions in a timely manner
• Possess an inherent passion for continuous improvement and innovation
• Customer and results focused
• Flexible and adaptable with the ability to align to changing priorities

What will be nice to have?

• University Degree or College Diploma in a related discipline
• 7+ years of experience as release manager in both waterfall and Agile/DevOps project lifecycles.
• Experience with automation tools and solutions for the release management function.
• Experience with Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) best practices
• Excellent organizational skills and ability to balance potentially conflicting priorities, and to track and monitor numerous commitments and activities.
• Strong facilitation skills with experience in undertaking liaison and consultations with multiple stakeholders and interest groups.
• Experience in liaising with clients/stakeholders where client service was a key focus to responding to queries, issues & risk management.
• Has knowledge of product development and project life-cycle management
• Knowledge of ITIL standards and best practices
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills are a must
• Knowledge of the financial and insurance industries
• Agile experience
• Knowledge in scripting languages and tools such as Maven, Groovy, Jenkins, Bitbucket, Git, ANT, Docker, Ansible, WebLogic, Shell and Python
• Knowledge of web technologies (e.g. JavaScript, AJAX, HTML5 and CSS), related protocols and standards (e.g. HTTP, SSL, SQL, XML)

What's in it for you?

• We're proud to be a Best Workplace for Hybrid Work by Great Place to Work® Canada
• Recognized in 2023 with the Most Trusted Executive team by Great Place to Work® Canada.
• Be part of our continuous improvement journey in developing the next greatest digital enterprise experience that is united by our Purpose: to help Clients and Employees achieve lifetime financial security and live healthier lives.
• Flexible Benefits from the day you join to meet the needs of you and your family.
• Pension, stock and savings programs to help build and enhance your future financial security.

The Base Pay range is for the primary location for which the job is posted. It may vary depending on the work location of the successful candidate or other factors. In addition to Base Pay, eligible Sun Life employees participate in various incentive plans, payment under which is discretionary and subject to individual and company performance. Certain sales focused roles have sales incentive plans based on individual or group sales results.

Diversity and inclusion have always been at the core of our values at Sun Life. A diverse workforce with wide perspectives and creative ideas benefits our clients, the communities where we operate and all of us as colleagues. We welcome applications from qualified individuals from all backgrounds.

Persons with disabilities who need accommodation in the application process or those needing job postings in an alternative format may e-mail a request to thebrightside@sunlife.com.

At Sun Life we strive to create a flexible work environment where our employees are empowered to do their best work. Several flexible work options are available and can be discussed throughout the selection process depending on the role requirements and individual needs.

We thank all applicants for showing an interest in this position. Only those selected for an interview will be contacted.

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