CI/CD & Release Automation Lead

WTW group; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 75,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

25 days annual leave

Private healthcare

Life insurance

Group income protection

Pension with matching contributions

Job summary

WTW Insurance Consulting and Technology is seeking a talented SaaS/DevOps Release Manager to lead modern release practices and automation across product teams in a fast-paced SaaS environment. You will partner with product management, engineering, security, and governance to drive continuous delivery and improve release health.

You will coach teams on DevOps practices, implement pipeline-based controls, and help scale release frameworks across SaaS products while embracing progressive delivery

Qualifications

• 3+ years in SaaS release management for frequent feature updates.
• Strong Agile, SDLC and DevOps practice knowledge.
• Experience with modern release tooling like ServiceNow or BMC.
• Ability to coordinate multiple stakeholders and teams.
• Solid CI/CD and release automation experience.

Responsibilities

• Establish and manage modern release practices with quality gates and automation.
• Coordinate risks, dependencies and release decisions across teams.
• Embed release processes into delivery workflows (pipelines, GitOps).
• Drive progressive delivery techniques and automation of manual tasks.
• Coach teams and align governance, security, and compliance in releases.

Skills

Release management

Agile & SDLC

DevOps practices

CI/CD pipelines

Stakeholder management

Delivery optimization

Observability

Continuous improvement

Tools

ServiceNow

BMC

Azure DevOps

GitHub Actions

OpenTofu

Job description

This job is with WTW, an inclusive employer and a member of myGwork – the largest global platform for the LGBTQ+ business community.

Description

WTW Insurance Consulting and Technology are embracing Continuous Delivery as part of our Software Development Life Cycle. At the heart of this, we are looking for a talented and experienced SaaS / DevOps Release Manager to join us to help expand and manage our approach, capabilities, tools, and colleagues to deliver agile release management. This role will be responsible for and lead key aspects of release management including planning, scheduling, communications, team coordination, deployment, and feature release. You will work closely with teams and stakeholders across the business including product management, engineering, and security to lead continuous release plans and establishing continuous improvement practices.

The Role

As a SaaS / DevOps Release Manager, you will :

Release Management & Governance

• Establish and manage modern release practices including quality gates, automated checks, and release readiness criteria
• Ensure alignment with governance, security, and compliance requirements while minimising manual intervention through automation
• Manage risks, dependencies, and release decisions across multiple product teams

DevOps & Automation Enablement

• Drive the adoption of CI/CD pipelines, release orchestration, and infrastructure automation across teams
• Work directly with engineering teams to embed release processes into delivery workflows (e.g. pipelines, GitOps, environment promotion models)
• Identify opportunities to replace manual release activities with automated, repeatable processes
• Support teams in implementing progressive delivery techniques (e.g. feature flags, canary releases, blue/green where applicable)

Tooling & Platform Integration

• Collaborate with platform and engineering teams to align on DevOps tooling, pipeline standards, and release frameworks
• Ensure release processes are integrated into developer tooling and platform capabilities, not operated separately
• Contribute to standardisation of release patterns across SaaS products

Continuous Improvement & Metrics

• Define and track DORA-style metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, recovery time)
• Drive continuous improvement through data-led insights
• Contribute to the evolution of ICT DevOps and SDLC practices

Coaching & Capability Building

• Coach teams on DevOps practices, automation, and modern release approaches
• Help teams transition from manual, process-heavy release management to automated, flow-based delivery
• Act as a bridge between engineering, architecture, and governance

What you’ll bring

• Demonstratable experience (at least 3 years) in release management for a SaaS organisation releasing new features and updates on a frequent (e.g., team sprint) basis to customers
• Great working experience of Agile, SDLC and DevOps practices to effectively fulfil the role
• Experience in modern release management tooling e.g. ServiceNow, BMC
• Managing multiple and varied internal stakeholders and customers and cross-functional teams
• Contributions into wider organisational practice improvement and evolution
• Knowledge and passion for new techniques to achieve release management goals and evidence to show continual improvement of release management approach
• Strong working knowledge of CI/CD pipelines (e.g. Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions) and release automation
• Experience implementing pipeline-based release controls, automated testing, and deployment strategies
• Understanding of infrastructure as code (e.g. OpenTofu) and environment management concepts
• Experience with cloud-native SaaS architectures (preferably Azure)
• Familiarity with observability, monitoring, and release health metrics
• Ability to work hands-on with engineering teams to diagnose and improve delivery pipelines
• Understanding of modern DevOps practices and principles (GitOps, trunk-based development, progressive delivery)
• Experience improving developer experience and reducing delivery friction through automation

What we offer

• Enjoy a benefits package designed to help you thrive, both professionally and personally. You'll receive 25 days of annual leave plus an extra WTW day to relax and recharge.
• Our comprehensive health and wellbeing offering includes private healthcare, life insurance, group income protection, and regular health assessments, all giving you peace of mind.
• Secure your future with our defined contribution pension scheme, featuring matched contributions up to 10% from the company.
• We support your growth and balance with hybrid working options, access to an employee assistance programme, and a fully paid volunteer day to make a difference in your community.
• On top of these, you can opt into a variety of additional perks including an electric vehicle car scheme, share scheme, cycle-to-work programme, dental and optical cover, critical illness protection, and much more.
• Start making the most of your career and wellbeing with a range of benefits tailored for you.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We’re committed to equal employment opportunity and provide application, interview and workplace adjustments and accommodations to all applicants. If you foresee any barriers, from the application process through to joining WTW, please email