Manager, Release, Configuration & Environment Management
Job Type: Contract (6 months, strong potential for extension)
Hourly Rate: $100-110/hr INC
Location: Downtown Toronto (Hybrid, 2 days onsite)
Your New Company
Our client is a large-scale enterprise organization undergoing significant technology transformation, focused on modernizing software delivery, strengthening governance, and improving operational resilience. As part of a growing Technology organization, they are investing in automation, cloud adoption, DevOps practices, and enterprise release governance to support critical business operations.
Your New Role
As the Manager, Release, Configuration & Environment Management, you will lead the governance and execution of software releases across development, testing, staging, and production environments. Acting as the central point of accountability for release management, configuration governance, and environment strategy, you will ensure technology changes are delivered safely, efficiently, and with minimal business disruption.
This leadership role will oversee a team of release, configuration, and environment professionals while partnering closely with Development, QA, Security, Infrastructure, Platform Engineering, DevOps, and business stakeholders.
You will be responsible for establishing and maturing enterprise standards, processes, and controls that drive release quality, environment stability, automation, compliance, and continuous improvement.
What You Need to Do
Release Management & Governance
- Develop and maintain enterprise release management policies, standards, and procedures.
- Own release calendars and coordinate deployment schedules across multiple teams and platforms.
- Lead release readiness reviews, deployment planning, go/no-go decisions, and post-release reviews.
- Oversee major, minor, emergency, and hotfix releases.
- Manage release risks, dependencies, conflicts, and stakeholder communications.
- Drive improvements in release processes through automation and operational excellence initiatives.
Configuration Management & CMDB Governance
- Establish and enforce configuration management policies and standards.
- Ensure configuration items (CIs) are accurately identified, documented, maintained, and traceable.
- Govern application, infrastructure, platform, and database configuration baselines.
- Support audit, regulatory, compliance, and governance requirements.
- Maintain configuration integrity and drive remediation of discrepancies and unauthorized changes.
- Ensure release artifacts and deployment assets are properly version controlled and traceable.
Environment Management
- Develop and execute the enterprise environment management strategy.
- Oversee environment availability, capacity planning, scheduling, maintenance, refreshes, and provisioning activities.
- Ensure non-production environments support development, testing, performance, integration, and UAT requirements.
- Partner with infrastructure, cloud, and platform teams to maintain environment stability and reliability.
- Coordinate data refresh and masking activities while ensuring compliance with privacy and security requirements.
Leadership & Operational Excellence
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Release Analysts, Configuration Analysts, and Environment Coordinators.
- Foster a culture of accountability, collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement.
- Build strong relationships with senior technology and business stakeholders.
- Support disaster recovery, operational readiness, business continuity, and change management initiatives.
What You'll Need to Succeed
To be successful in this role, you will bring:
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline.
- 8+ years of experience across Release Management, DevOps, IT Delivery, Configuration Management, or Environment Management.
- 3+ years of leadership experience managing enterprise-level release activities and cross-functional technical teams.
- Experience supporting complex enterprise application portfolios across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.
- Strong understanding of change management, ITSM, governance, and operational controls.
Technical Expertise
- Release Management tools including Azure DevOps, GitHub, Jira, and ServiceNow.
- CI/CD pipelines and DevOps methodologies.
- Source control management and branching strategies.
- Configuration Management Database (CMDB) practices and governance.
- Infrastructure as Code technologies such as Terraform, Bicep, ARM, or CloudFormation.
- Public cloud platforms including Azure, AWS, and/or GCP.
- ITIL-based service management and change management processes.
Preferred Certifications
- ITIL Foundation or ITIL Managing Professional
- Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
- Project Management Professional (PMP)
- Certified Change Management Professional (CCMP)
- SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE)
- ServiceNow Certification
- Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
Key Competencies
- Strategic thinking and decision-making
- Stakeholder and relationship management
- Risk management and governance
- Release orchestration and deployment oversight
- Environment lifecycle management
- Conflict resolution and negotiation
- Executive communication and reporting
- Continuous improvement mindset
What You'll Get in Return
You will have the opportunity to join an enterprise technology team driving large-scale transformation initiatives. This role offers the chance to influence release governance, DevOps maturity, environment strategy, and operational excellence across a complex technology landscape. In return, you will receive a competitive compensation package, comprehensive benefits, career development opportunities, and the ability to make a significant impact within a highly visible leadership role.
What You Need to Do Now
If you're interested in this role, click Apply Now to submit your updated resume.
If this opportunity isn't the right fit for you, but you are considering your next career move, please contact us for a confidential discussion regarding your career options.
This posting is for an existing vacancy with the organization.
AI may be used to screen, assess, or select applicants for the position.
