Release Lead

Quality Professionals | Q-Pros; United Arab Emirates; On-site; AED 240,000 - 360,000; Full time

Job summary

Quality Professionals (Q-Pros) is seeking a Release Lead for a UAE client to govern end-to-end release lifecycles of CDP applications. You will establish standardized release processes, own calendars, and drive CI/CD/DevOps adoption to ensure safe, efficient releases with minimal business disruption.

In this role you will collaborate with Development, QA, DevOps, Infrastructure and Security to implement gating, rollback plans, and post-release validation.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as Release Lead/Release Manager in large-scale environments.
• Strong understanding of SaaS release lifecycles.
• Hands-on with CI/CD pipelines, DevOps, automated deployments, containerization, and BDD.
• Experience with JIRA and release/change management processes.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain release policy and end-to-end release gate process.
• Own the master release calendar and coordinate schedules across projects.
• Drive CI/CD adoption and automated deployments across environments.
• Establish automated release practices using DevOps, containerization, and CI/CD tools.
• Collaborate with Development, QA, DevOps, and Security for smooth releases.
• Define readiness criteria, gates, checklists, rollback plans, and post-release validation.
• Develop release dashboards and KPIs and report to leadership.
• Manage release dependencies across apps, platforms, and integrations.

Skills

Release management

CI/CD

DevOps practices

Stakeholder management

Automation

Problem solving

Tools

JIRA

CI/CD tools

Monitoring tools

Job description

Quality Professionals (Q-Pros) is a leading software quality assurance and testing company, with a strong presence across the Middle East and GCC. We are looking for a Release Lead to join our one of our clients in UAE.

Role Overview

The Release Lead will be responsible for managing and governing the end-to-end release lifecycle for Common Digital Platform (CDP) applications. The role will establish standardized release processes, coordinate releases across multiple CDP projects, drive CI/CD/CT, and ensure applications are released safely, efficiently, and with minimal business disruption.

Key Responsibilities

• Define and maintain the Release Policy, Master Release Plan, and End-to-End Release Gate process for all CDP applications.
• Own and maintain the Master Release Calendar, coordinating release schedules across projects and ensuring there are no release conflicts.
• Work closely with the Change Management team to ensure all CDP applications complete the required release governance and readiness checks before CAB approval.
• Drive CI/CD and DevOps adoption, including automated application deployments across development, testing, staging, and production environments.
• Establish and improve automated release practices using DevOps, BDD, containerized deployment approaches, and relevant CI/CD tools.
• Work closely with Development, QA, DevOps, Infrastructure, Security, and Change teams to ensure seamless and repeatable release execution.
• Define release readiness criteria, entry/exit gates, deployment checklists, rollback plans, and post-release validation processes.
• Manage release dependencies across applications, platforms, integrations, and SaaS solutions.
• Use tools such as JIRA to track release activities, dependencies, risks, issues, and readiness.
• Set up and leverage application monitoring and release monitoring tools to support deployment validation and early detection of issues.
• Establish release dashboards and KPIs, including release success rate, deployment frequency, failed releases, rollback rate, release lead time, and release-related incidents.
• Provide regular release status, performance, and success reporting to CDP leadership and relevant stakeholders.
• Continuously identify opportunities to improve release automation, standardization, quality, and time-to-market.

Experience & Skills

• Proven experience as a Release Lead / Release Manager in large-scale enterprise technology environments.
• Strong understanding of application and SaaS development and release lifecycles.
• Hands-on understanding of CI/CD pipelines, DevOps practices, automated deployments, containerization, and BDD.
• Experience with JIRA and release/change management processes.
• Experience working with monitoring, deployment, and DevOps toolsets.
• Strong understanding of enterprise change governance, CAB processes, release controls, and production deployment practices.
• Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to coordinate multiple technology teams and concurrent projects.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with a focus on automation, operational efficiency, and continuous improvement.
• Experience managing releases across multiple applications, environments, integrations, and technology teams.