Senior Project Manager/Leader

An experienced Project Manager is required to establish, implement, and continuously improve enterprise Release Management practices. This role will be responsible for developing and standardizing release management processes, governance, tools, templates, and reporting across a diverse portfolio of technology initiatives. The successful candidate will work closely with project teams, operational support teams, vendors, and business stakeholders to establish a consistent and scalable release management framework that enables the coordinated planning, assessment, approval, scheduling, deployment, and communication of technology changes and releases. This assignment requires a senior resource with proven experience implementing release management practices within complex organizations where teams operate with varying delivery models, processes, and levels of maturity. Work Policy- In a hybrid work arrangement, employees are expected to work a minimum of three (3) days per week at their City work location and the remainder of the week from their remote work location, in accordance with the City’s Hybrid Work Program Must Haves: Qualifications and Experience: - Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field. - Minimum 10 years of experience in IT Service Management, Release Management, Change Management, Project Delivery, or related disciplines. - Demonstrated experience establishing or maturing Release Management practices within large, complex public-sector or enterprise organizations. - Proven experience working across multiple business units and technology teams with varying delivery methodologies, governance models, and operational processes. - Experience developing enterprise-wide governance frameworks, operating models, standards, procedures, and service management processes. - Strong understanding of technology delivery lifecycles, including Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, DevOps, and operational change practices. - Experience facilitating stakeholder workshops, process assessments, and consensus-building activities with diverse groups. - Proven ability to influence stakeholders and drive process adoption in environments with limited standardization. - Experience creating executive-level reports, dashboards, presentations, and governance materials. - Excellent verbal and written communication, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills. - Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively within cross-functional teams. Technical Capabilities: - Strong knowledge of ITIL principles and service management best practices, including Release Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, and Service Request Management. - Experience designing and implementing release governance, release planning, deployment coordination, dependency management, and risk management processes. - Knowledge of software development and deployment lifecycles, including CI/CD, DevOps, Agile delivery, and operational support models. - Experience working with enterprise service management and project delivery tools such as ServiceNow, Jira, Azure DevOps, or equivalent platforms. - Ability to analyze existing processes, identify gaps, and develop practical recommendations for process standardization and continuous improvement. - Experience developing metrics and reporting frameworks to measure release performance, process compliance, operational effectiveness, and service quality Deliverables - Develop and implement a standardized enterprise Release Management framework, including governance, processes, procedures, roles, and responsibilities. - Produce Release Management templates, intake forms, release plans, deployment checklists, governance artifacts, and supporting documentation. - Establish an enterprise release calendar, release governance model, risk management approach, and release reporting framework. - Conduct assessments of current release practices and provide recommendations and implementation plans for process improvements. - Develop training materials, knowledge transfer documentation, and guidance to support organizational adoption of Release Management practices. - Deliver regular status reports, performance metrics, and recommendations to leadership to support continuous improvement and long-term operational sustainability. The Release Manager will: - Develop, implement, and operationalize a standardized Release Management framework, processes, procedures, templates, and governance controls. - Assess current-state release and deployment practices across multiple business and technology teams and recommend improvements to achieve consistency and compliance. - Collaborate with project, product, operations, infrastructure, and vendor teams to establish release planning, coordination, scheduling, risk management, and deployment practices. - Facilitate release governance activities, including release assessments, release calendars, dependency management, risk reviews, approval processes, and deployment readiness reviews. - Define and implement release metrics, dashboards, reporting, and performance measures to support operational transparency and continuous improvement. - Develop and maintain release management artifacts, including intake processes, release plans, deployment checklists, governance documentation, and operating procedures. - Provide guidance, coaching, and training to project and operational teams on Release Management processes, roles, responsibilities, and best practices. - Work closely with Change Management, Project Management, Service Management, and technical teams to align release activities with organizational objectives and service delivery requirements.