Release Train Engineer

JOB SUMMARY

Facilitate product release planning and governs the end-to-end release lifecycle across ERCOT applications, AI, and data platform portfolio. Coordinates release planning sessions, backlog management, and product roadmap facilitation across Agile sprint, waterfall, and hybrid delivery teams. Owns the production release calendar, NERC CIP change governance, ServiceNow change management workflows, and program-level delivery metrics reporting. Serves as the connective tissue between delivery teams, business stakeholders, and governance bodies — ensuring every release is planned, approved, measured, and continuously improved.

JOB DUTIES

• Applies knowledge of release planning, change management, and delivery governance principles to facilitate structured, compliant, and predictable software releases across ERCOT's application and data platform portfolio.

• Follows established release management processes and procedures to coordinate deployment activities across Agile sprint, waterfall, and hybrid delivery teams; ensures cross-functional alignment on release scope, schedule, and readiness.

• Creates, reviews, and manages IT change records in ServiceNow in accordance with ERCOT change management standards; coordinates Change Advisory Board activities and ensures all releases meet NERC CIP change governance requirements prior to production promotion.

• Maintains the production release calendar and facilitates release planning meetings, backlog grooming sessions, and deployment readiness reviews to ensure consistent, predictable release cadence across all delivery tracks.

• Contributes to the generation and distribution of release metrics, status reports, and delivery dashboards supporting program-level visibility and continuous improvement of the release management function.

ADDITIONAL JOB DUTIES — BY LEVEL

Level 2 — Release Train Engineer

• Release Planning Facilitation — Facilitate product release planning sessions across Agile sprint teams, waterfall project tracks, and hybrid delivery programs; coordinate cross-team capacity, feature scoping, dependency mapping, and risk identification for each planning cycle.

• Product Roadmap Facilitation — Facilitate product roadmap planning sessions with Product Managers, architects, and business stakeholders; maintain roadmap visibility in Jira; communicate how planned features and releases map to organizational priorities and delivery capacity.

• Waterfall Project Release Planning — Own release planning for waterfall project tracks: milestone definition, phase gate sequencing, Gantt-style schedule development, resource coordination, and formal release approval planning.

• Agile Sprint & Iteration Release Planning — Facilitate sprint and iteration release planning for Agile teams; coordinate sprint-to-release promotion sequencing, release branch readiness, and Definition of Done alignment across development, QA, and release engineering.

• Backlog Management & Grooming Facilitation — Facilitate product and program backlog grooming and refinement sessions; ensure epics, features, and stories are sufficiently defined, estimated, dependency-mapped, and ready for sprint or project execution.

• ServiceNow Change Record Management — Create, review, and manage change records in ServiceNow; ensure change classification, approval routing, and documentation meet ITSM governance and NERC CIP audit standards.

• Release Calendar Coordination — Maintain the production release calendar; coordinate deployment windows across delivery teams, infrastructure, and change management; communicate release schedule and risk to all stakeholders.

• Release Metrics & DORA Data Collection — Capture and report release frequency, change volume by type, change success rates, PI predictability, and sprint velocity; contribute to DORA and ITC metric dashboards in Power BI.

• CAB Meeting Facilitation — Facilitate Change Advisory Board meetings; prepare and distribute meeting agendas, capture decisions and action items, and ensure CAB notes are documented and distributed to stakeholders.

• Deployment Readiness Tracking — Track release deliverables, security compliance checks, and functional test approvals; confirm production readiness criteria are met before each deployment window.

• Stakeholder Communication — Coordinate release communication across development, QA, operations, and business teams; ensure all stakeholders have timely, accurate information on release scope, schedule, and risk.

• Documentation & Process Standards — Update and maintain release management process documentation, runbooks, and deployment checklists following applicable ERCOT standards.

Sr. Release Train Engineer (All Level 2 duties plus:)

• Hybrid Delivery Coordination — Coordinate release planning and deployment sequencing across teams operating under Agile, waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies; synchronize cross-team releases when shared dependencies exist.

• Program-Level Release Governance — Enforce release readiness criteria before each deployment window; validate test completion evidence, environment stability, stakeholder approvals, and CAB authorization; serve as program-level production gate keeper.

• NERC CIP & ITSM Change Governance — Ensure all releases comply with NERC CIP change management requirements; coordinate with the CAB, enforce change classification standards, and maintain complete audit trails for all production promotions.

• Emergency & Expedited Change Coordination — Facilitate emergency and expedited change management processes; coordinate expedited CAB review, risk assessment documentation, stakeholder notification, and post-implementation review.

• IT & Change Metrics Reporting — Track and report IT change metrics including change volume by type, change success rate, unauthorized change incidents, CAB throughput, change-to-incident correlation, and SLA compliance; publish via ServiceNow and Power BI.

• SDLC Metrics & Delivery Throughput Analysis — Measure program-level SDLC metrics including throughput, cycle time, lead time, WIP load, and bottleneck patterns; publish actionable insights to delivery leadership.

• Release Health Dashboards — Design and maintain executive-facing dashboards in Power BI reflecting deployment status, release calendar adherence, milestone completion rates, change success rates, and DORA metric trends.

• Dependency & Risk Register Management — Maintain a product dependency map and risk register; facilitate cross-team dependency resolution and ensure all risks are visible, owned, and actively mitigated.

• Continuous Improvement Leadership — Lead retrospectives and release planning improvement sessions; identify and drive elimination of waste, handoff delays, and approval bottlenecks; track improvement items to completion.

• Waterfall Phase Gate & Milestone Governance — Coordinate formal waterfall phase gate reviews; ensure gate entry/exit criteria are met, required artifacts are complete, and stakeholder sign-offs are documented and archived

TECHNOLOGY STACK

All Release Train Engineer roles operate across the following technology stack. Depth of proficiency varies by level and role; senior levels are expected to demonstrate architectural and governance-level expertise across multiple categories.

Category

Tools & Technologies

CI/CD & Pipelines

GitHub Actions, Jenkins

Container & Orchestration

Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift (Private Cloud), Helm

Infrastructure as Code

Ansible, Terraform

Cloud Platforms

Azure, Private Cloud (OpenShift / On-Premises)

Observability & Monitoring

Splunk

ITSM & Agile Tooling

ServiceNow, Jira

Data & Analytics

Databricks, Power BI, SQL, Oracle DB, PostgreSQL

Scripting & Languages

Python, PowerShell

Artifact Management

Artifactory

AI & Automation

LLM-integrated pipelines, AI-assisted code review, GitHub Copilot

EXPERIENCE

• Level 2: 2+ years in Release Management, Program Delivery, or Project Management with direct accountability for production release governance across Agile and waterfall methodologies.

• Senior Level: 5+ years in Release Management, Program Delivery, or Project Management with direct accountability for production release governance across Agile and waterfall methodologies.

• Lead Level: 8+ years in Release Management, Program Delivery, or Project Management with direct accountability for production release governance across Agile and waterfall methodologies.

EDUCATION

• Bachelor's Degree : Business, Computer Science, Information Systems or related field (Required)

• or a combination of education and experience that provides equivalent knowledge to a major in such fields is required

CERTIFICATION

• ITIL Foundation v4 (Preferred) | SAFe Release Train Engineer RTE

• Cloud Certification Azure (Preferred) | Certified Scrum Master CSM (Preferred)

WORK LOCATION:

• Taylor, TX Hybrid 2 days a week

The foregoing description reflects the minimum qualifications and the essential functions of the position that must be performed proficiently with or without reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities.  It is not an exhaustive list of the duties expected to be performed, and management may, at its discretion, revise or require that other or different tasks be performed as assigned.  This job description is not intended to create a contract of employment with ERCOT.  Both ERCOT and the employee may exercise their employment-at-will rights at any time. #LI-DN

ERCOT is firmly committed to equal employment for all qualified persons without regard to race, sex, medical condition, religion, age, creed, national origin, citizenship status, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, ancestry, veteran status, genetic information or any other protected category under federal, state or local law.

Expected Salary Range:

$120,000 - $165,000