Release Manager - Cognizant

Job Title: Release Manager 

Job Location: Prague

Salary & Benefits: Competitive

What makes Cognizant a unique place to work? The combination of rapid growth and an international and innovative environment! This is creating a lot of opportunities for people like YOU — people with an entrepreneurial spirit who want to make a difference in this world. 

At Cognizant, together with your colleagues from all around the world, you will collaborate on creating solutions for the world's leading companies and help them become more flexible, more innovative and successful. And this is your chance to be part of the success story: we are looking for a Release Manager to join our Prague Team. 

The successful candidate is a person with Release/Project management and cross-group collaborations skills, with the ability to schedule and prioritize work against multiple deadlines and the ability to direct teams to success.  The ability to thrive in an ambiguous and dynamic environment are essential.

Release Manager key Accountabilities:

• Release planning for upcoming releases with close co-ordination with different teams across the globe
• Manage day-to-day tasks/activities in coordination with a team of developers to effectively meet the deliverables
• Migrations of programs, database changes, reference data changes through the SDLC. Provide technical support to application development teams
• Provide support to various business and technology teams as necessary during all stages like development, deployment and delivery
• Consulting with Knowledge Management and other teams to develop release content including release notes, procedures, release plans, internal and external communications and implementation materials
• Strong communication, Positive attitude and presentation skills with a firm sense of accountability, ownership for the end-to-end project lifecycle
• Drive regular project meetings and ensure issues, action items and risks are tracked and have mitigation and resolution plans in place

Release Manager key Competencies:

• Large enterprise deployment experience in complex heterogeneous environments.
• Excellent influencing and facilitation skills, problem solving/troubleshooting activities.
• Critical eye for detail, Able to Multitask effectively and able to adapt quickly to changing client requirements
• The role requires in general mastery of release management in an application development environment, polished communication / stakeholder's management skills and strong, proven experience in an onsite/offshore model.
• Ability to work effectively under pressure in a resilient and flexible manner
• Can become recognised as an expert within Cognizant and can develop this profile within the client organisation

Release Manager Knowledge:

• Experience of on-site / offshore delivery model
• Understanding/certification of PMP, PRINCE2, Agile, DevOps, Release Management tools and ITIL processes and application development methodologies
• Strong experience with MS Tools: MS Project, Visio, Powerpoint, Word, Excel
• Fluent English language skills (written, spoken) are a must have.
• Other European language skills an advantage.

Release Manager Experience:

• Overall relevant experience in Release Management/Change Management/Configuration Management/STI areas of 7-10 yrs
• Can do Release planning for upcoming releases with close co-ordination with different teams across the globe.
• Excellent communication and networking skills.
• 7-10 years’ experience in Change and Release Management in a technology environment
• 7-10 years of configuration management and engineering for small to medium scale projects/programs
• Deep understanding of version control systems including branching and merging strategies and understanding of environment and software configuration management
• Strong understanding of Infrastructure and cloud technologies.
• Effectively manage day-to-day tasks/activities in coordination with a team of developers to effectively meet the deliverables.
• Provide support to various business and technology teams as necessary during development and delivery.
• Migrations of programs, database changes, reference data changes through the SDLC..
• Provide technical support to application development team.
• Provide support for release management tools like Plutora, JIRA etc..
• Assists with impact analysis of any changes made to the database objects.
• Well versed with all database objects, including tables, clusters, indexes, views, sequences, packages and procedures
• Proven experience building relationships and effectively communicating, both verbally and in writing, with diverse audiences
• Strong problem solving, risk mitigation, conflict resolution and influencing skills
• Ability and willingness to work extended hours based on project requirements
• Prior experience of working across teams spreading across multiple locations is a plus.
• ITIL certification
• Should have environment management skills
• Should be conversant with Unix, Informatica, MDM, TIBCO, Database, Data warehousing technologies
• Consulting with Knowledge Management and other teams to develop release content including release notes, procedures, release plans, internal and external communications and implementation materials
• Should have excellent reporting skills to Middle/Senior Management
• Solid understanding of Service Level Agreements & related metrics

Release Manager Qualifications:

• BS/BA degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems or related field preferred
• 7+ years of experience acting as an information technology or software Project Manager or Release Manager
• PMP
• PRINCE2 Practitioner
• PMI-ACP
• ITIL

If you’re interested in this Release Manager role, don’t hesitate and APPLY NOW! 

About Cognizant 

Cognizant is one of the world’s leading professional services companies, transforming clients’ business, operating and technology models for the digital era. Our unique industry-based, consultative approach helps clients envision, build and run more innovative and efficient businesses. Headquartered in the U.S., Cognizant, a member of the NASDAQ-100, is ranked 194 on the Fortune 500 and is consistently listed among the most admired companies in the world.