Release Manager

Who We Are:

At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse. 

Our global family now encompasses over 30,000 employees across 150+ offices in 64 markets, each contributing to a culture that values connection, belonging, and the power of differences.  Our expertise spans the entire customer journey, offering deep insights in communications, commerce, consultancy, CRM, CX, data, production, and technology. We deliver end-to-end solutions that result in revolutionary work. 

We are VML Enterprise Solutions - a group of talented engineers, tech experts, and creators who combine our passions and contribute to the IT world. You may know us better as Wunderman Thompson Technology – in 2024 we changed our name, but at the same time, we remained a great team of people who deliver our best. We design, build, manage and run complex technology platforms and help our clients to benefit from our work and creativity.   

The opportunity:

An experienced Release Manager, who leads teams to follow best practices in development standards and coding reviews. You have an enthusiasm for learning new skills and initiative to deliver the best outcomes for our clients.

You will be primarily responsible the management and protection of releases through, where appropriate, Build/Develop, QA, UAT, Pre-Prod and Production environments across multiple technical stacks including front ends, middleware, core commerce platforms and more.

What you’ll get to do:

• Negotiate, plan, and manage all release activities.
• Analyse risks and resolve issues that affect release scope, schedule, and quality.
• Work cohesively with external partners, suppliers, product owners, and system integrators (SI’s)
• Develop common strategies for release governance across multiple systems
• Communicate release details and schedules to the Business as required.
• Act as guardian to uphold the integrity of the branching strategy and ensure processes are optimised to enable frequent and smooth releases
• Know and understand impacts of branches and code merges in the repositories used by the dev teams.
• Work with third party managed-hosting providers to increase automated processes end-to-end
• Work with the development teams.
• Coach and help automate release processes.
• Inform senior management of enterprise-wide exposure to release risk and effectively mitigate it
• Create, track, and maintain a published release and deployment calendar.
• Know the tech stack of the development process so you can participate and discuss with the development teams the challenges of the full delivery workflow.
• Maintain release documentation and manage key information such as build and release procedures, dependencies, and notification lists.
• Work with respective teams for sign off including manual, automation, performance and security testing to name a few
• Work with Infrastructure teams to improve a process, pass awareness of potential problems risks and oversee that the process is fit for the Release process needs.
• Work closely with Project Management to ensure the efficiency of the delivery of Programmes and Projects (Control, Plan, Measure, Predict and React).
• Work with Service Management in the Post-Mortem analysis and improvements identification.
• Understand Infrastructure where applications will be deployed and the different technologies that can be involved in a complex e-commerce environment. This way you should build bridges between the product delivered and Infrastructure that supports it

What you should have:

• Experience in DevOps related release management including implementing and managing the release management lifecycle
• Knowledge of software development, preferably on web (e-commerce) sites.
• Knowledge in software build, repository, and maintenance tools like GitHub, Gitlab, Jenkins, Bitbucket or any other automation build and deployment tools.
• Experience working in agile environments with SCRUM methodologies.
• Passionate about delivering quality software and defending the customer/end-user perspective.
• Good communication skills and teamwork believer.
• Strong time management & organisational skills.
• Interested in automating things.
• You like to learn and investigate new technologies that the company is working with or will work in the future.
• Experience in Continuous Integration, Delivery, Deploy methodologies.
• Excellent negotiation skills and an ability to handle sensitive issues with tact and diplomacy.

You will collaborate with our UK project team, so we’ll need you to be available until 18:00 PL

What we can offer you:

Alongside the opportunity to work with some of the most exciting brands around the world, we’ll also prioritise your career development and help you grow your skills. We’ll empower you to make a difference, allow you to be yourself, and respect who you are.

Our culture thrives on our core values, designed for impact-driven individuals: Heart, Brains and Courage.

We lead with Heart, fostering empathy and trust where genuine connections and human-centric work flourish.
We empower your Brains for innovation, valuing relentless curiosity and collaborative intelligence to solve complex challenges.
And we champion Courage, inspiring you to speak up, embrace experimentation, and advocate for bold solutions that push our thinking to be better than yesterday.

At VML Enterprise Solutions

Our Enterprise Solutions division houses strategic consultants, creative and technical architects and skilled developers and operators that together help some of the world’s leading organisations to deliver outstanding digital experiences across all major routes to market worldwide: marketplaces, online retailers, D2C, B2B and social platforms. With over 4,200 experts in 55 operational centres across 34 countries, our capabilities span the entire buying journey from customer acquisition, through engagement, to conversion and loyalty, driving multi-channel growth for world-leading brands.

We work with some of the most exciting brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, EY, Bosch, Unilever, Ford, DFS, Mercedes-Benz, Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Sainsbury’s, Selfridges, Shell and Tiffany & Co. We’ve built over 500 platforms for brands and retailers and generate in excess of $29bn annually for our clients and work with over 50 strategic partners including Adobe, SAP, Salesforce, HCL, Shopify, Sitecore, BigCommerce, commerce tools and Acquia. Our reputation is based on our people, and we believe we have some of the best in the business.

As our business grows internationally, we’re looking for new people to join us on our journey to inspire and take a key role in shaping some of the best commerce solutions, services, and websites in the world. Working as a team, no problem is insurmountable; we share in our client’s successes and believe that anyone can show creative bravery no matter what their role is in the team. 

#LI-HYBRID #LI-APAC

WPP (VML Enterprise Solutions) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. 

VML is a WPP Agency. For more information, please visit our website, and follow VML on our social channels via Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. 

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