Change and Release Management Guild Lead

Key accountabilities & responsibilities

• Own the enterprise-wide code change and release management strategy, frameworks, and tooling.
• Oversee the planning, coordination, and execution of change across Agile Release Trains (ARTs), platforms, and delivery teams.
• Govern the release lifecycle across multiple teams, ensuring traceability, security, and auditability of change.
• Enable continuous delivery through modern DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and platform automation.
• Lead PI (Programme Increment) planning and change governance forums to align change across squads, platforms, and portfolios.
• Identify cross-team dependencies and risks, proactively managing change impacts and ensuring operational stability.
• Embed structured change management methodologies (e.g., ITIL, Prosci ADKAR) into delivery practices and culture.
• Drive continuous improvement of release cadence, change quality, and incident reduction.
• Build and lead a high-performing change and release team, with capability across DevOps, release, and stakeholder management.

Specialist skills & experience

• 10+ years of experience in technology change, release, or DevOps leadership roles in complex enterprise environments.
• Strong knowledge of Agile Release Trains (ARTs), SAFe delivery models, and Lean Portfolio Management.
• Proven track record of managing large-scale, multi-team change delivery with a strong focus on automation and governance.
• Skilled in CI/CD tooling and practices (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps) and release automation strategies.
• Hands-on experience with containerisation and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) and platform-level change deployment.
• Proficient in infrastructure and application monitoring and observability (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK).
• Strong understanding of risk analysis, impact assessment, and change readiness in technology environments.
• Familiar with ITIL, Prosci ADKAR, or equivalent change management frameworks.
• Technically conversant across cloud, infrastructure, and software domains—able to assess change risk and coordinate delivery.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement, with the ability to communicate change strategy, impacts, and value across all levels.

The Technology Change and Release Management Guild Lead will work closely with:

• Product Owners and Delivery Leads – to coordinate releases, prioritise change, and align across teams and portfolios.
• DevOps and Platform Engineering – to automate change pipelines, integrate observability, and optimise deployment.
• Technology Operations and Incident Management – to ensure stability during change and manage post-release support.
• Security and Risk Functions – to embed secure-by-design practices and ensure compliance throughout the change lifecycle.
• Business Stakeholders and CIO Office – to align change activity with business outcomes, risk appetite, and strategic objectives.