Release Manager

Al Etihad Payments; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 300,000 - 540,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

Flight tickets

Health insurance

Educational allowance for child

Job summary

Al Etihad Payments is seeking a Release Manager to lead strategic planning, scheduling, risk assessment, and end-to-end orchestration of software releases and infrastructure updates across enterprise environments.

The role anchors production stability, uses Jira ITSM as the source of truth, and coordinates between engineering and operations to achieve zero-downtime deployments while maintaining platform integrity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor\'s or Master\'s degree in electrical/computer engineering, computer science.
• 8+ years in technology roles.
• 2+ years in release management.
• Experience in payment services is a plus.
• Prior experience in change delivery is required.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end Change Lifecycle Management for Standard, Normal and Major CRs.
• Manage ITSM workflows and configuration management in Jira ITSM.
• Coordinate Patch Management across OS, middleware and tools.
• Lead Release Governance, runbooks, and incident management activities.
• Run CAB meetings, prepare deployment plans, and report outcomes.

Skills

ITIL Mastery

CR Governance

Risk Assessment

CAB Facilitation

Runbook Writing

Deployment Planning

Telemetry & Metrics

Education

Bachelor's or Master\'s in Electrical/Computer Engineering

Job description

Al Etihad Payments empowers employees to work in an environment that best promotes their productivity and well-being, while providing high-quality workplace and fantastic professional experience.

|Get to Know Us

Al Etihad Payments is the UAE’s designated retail payments entity, dedicated to developing and operating world-class infrastructure, standards, and solutions for the UAE Economy. Al Etihad Payments is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE, strongly supported by the UAE Government.

Al Etihad Payments is the UAE’s designated retail payments entity, dedicated to developing and operating world-class infrastructure, standards, and solutions for the UAE Economy. Al Etihad Payments is a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE, strongly supported by the UAE Government.

Our employees are committed to work with licensed financial institutions and other payment service providers to foster innovation and deliver excellent financial services to all in the UAE, efficiently and without friction.

Al Etihad Payments supports the government’s objectives of a cashless society, national digitization, and the Central Bank of the UAE objective of being a top ten central bank globally.

|Our Culture

We are a collaborative, diverse and passionate group of individuals that works as one team. We support one another, make impactful contributions to the organization, and develop and nurture meaningful connections across the payment’s ecosystem!

|About the role

The Release Manager is responsible for leading the strategic planning, scheduling, risk assessment, and end-to-end orchestration of all software releases, infrastructure patches, and configuration updates across enterprise environments. This role acts as the primary gatekeeper for production stability, ensuring that Standard, Normal, and Major Change Requests (CRs) are meticulously tracked, reviewed, and executed in compliance with ITIL standards. Utilizing Jira Service Management (ITSM) as the core single source of truth, this senior professional will bridge the gap between engineering teams and operations to drive zero-downtime deployments and safeguard platform integrity.

|What You’ll Do:

Change Request (CR) Governance & Tracking

• Change Lifecycle Management: Own the end-to-end tracking, lifecycle management, and auditing of all Standard, Normal, and Major Change Requests to ensure maximum delivery reliability.
• Standard CR Automation: Define, document, and pre-approve repeatable, low-risk Standard CRs within Jira to streamline rapid operational maintenance.
• Normal CR Evaluation: Review, coordinate, and seek appropriate technical approvals for Normal CRs, ensuring complete documentation, validation, and rollback strategies are fully established.
• Major CR Orchestration: Convene and lead emergency Change Advisory Boards (CAB) for high-impact Major CRs, closely assessing downstream risks, cross-team dependencies, and resource availability before signing off on deployment schedules.

Jira ITSM Tool Administration & Configuration Management Governance

• ITSM Workflows: Supervise and optimize release-tracking workflows, custom transition schemas, and automation rules inside the Jira ITSM tool.
• Configuration Management: Manage software and infrastructure configuration changes, ensuring all production attributes, environment variables, and application parameters are locked down and tracked historically within the ticketing system.
• Audit Compliance: Maintain a crystal-clear, audit-ready paper trail of all production modifications, configuration drift remediations, and operational change approvals.

Patch Management & Environment Integrity

• Vulnerability & Patch Coordination: Partner with Security and SysAdmin squads to orchestrate routine and emergency Patch Management cadences across operating systems, middleware components, and third‑party tools.
• Deployment Validation: conduct post production deployment sanity testing and document evidence and results

Release Governance & Incident Management

• Deployment Playbooks: Compile, run, and continuously optimize deployment runbooks and back‑out plans for complex maintenance windows.
• Key Performance Metrics: Establish and present core operational delivery metrics (e.g., Change Success Rate, Average CR Lead Time, Emergency Release Volume) to technology leadership.
• Conduct POST IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW (PIR) and document
• Run & Schedule Change Advisory Board (CAB) meeting and communicate with senior stakeholders about CAB outcomes
• Submit Weekly Monthly & Quarterly Change/Release management reports to senior stakeholders

|Qualifications & Years of Experience

Bachelor’s Degree or Master’s Degree in electrical/computer engineering, computer science

8+ years of work experience in technology related field

2+ years’ experience in release management

Previous experience in payment services is a plus

Prior experience in change delivery role is required.

|Required Skills

• ITIL Framework Mastery: Deep knowledge of ITIL practices, specifically Change Enablement, Release Management, and Configuration Management lifecycles.
• CR Classification & Governance: Extensive experience defining, auditing, and orchestrating Standard, Normal, and Major Change Requests (CRs).
• Risk Assessment & Mitigation: Proven ability to evaluate complex deployment structures, identify cross-system dependencies, and build bulletproof rollback strategies.
• CAB Facilitation: Experience leading Change Advisory Boards (CAB), managing conflicting schedules, and aligning stakeholders during critical go/no-go decisions.
• Versatile & Team player with good Collaboration & Soft Skills
• Patch Management Coordination: Experience scheduling and supervising large-scale system, middleware, and operating system updates across staging and production tiers.
• Runbook Architecture: Expertise in writing and refining granular execution runbooks, step-by-step technical playbooks, and timing schedules for multi-team deployments.
• Release Telemetry: Ability to track and report key operational metrics such as Change Success Rate, Deployment Lead Time, and Incident Rate from Changes.

|What you can expect from us

• Modern work environment with level of flexibility;
• Dynamic and motivated team of colleagues working towards achieving UAE National Objectives;
• Competitive compensation package, including annual bonus and additional benefits like child educational allowance and annual flight tickets (where eligible);
• Comprehensive health insurance coverage;