CI/CD & Release Automation Lead

WTW; Reigate and Banstead; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

WTW Insurance Consulting and Technology is seeking a SaaS/DevOps Release Manager to own release governance, automate delivery, and collaborate with engineering and security teams. Lead planning, scheduling, and continuous improvement of release processes across multiple product teams.

The role emphasizes automation, CI/CD, and progressive delivery, with a focus on reducing manual intervention and improving deployment health through data-driven metrics.

Qualifications

• At least 3 years of release management experience in a SaaS organisation.
• Strong understanding of Agile, SDLC and DevOps practices.
• Experience with modern release management tooling (ServiceNow, BMC).
• Experience managing multiple stakeholders and cross-functional teams.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and release automation (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions).
• Knowledge of infrastructure as code and environment management (OpenTofu).
• Familiarity with cloud-native SaaS architectures (Azure).
• Ability to coach teams on DevOps practices and automation.

Responsibilities

• Establish and manage modern release practices with quality gates and automated checks.
• Coordinate release planning, scheduling, and governance across product teams.
• Drive CI/CD adoption and release orchestration with automation.
• Integrate release processes into pipelines, GitOps, and environment promotion models.
• Promote progressive delivery techniques and release health monitoring.
• Collaborate with engineering and governance to standardise release patterns.

Skills

Agile methodologies

SDLC practices

DevOps practices

Stakeholder management

Automation mindset

Tools

ServiceNow

BMC

Azure DevOps

GitHub Actions

OpenTofu

Job description

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

Qualifications

What you’ll bring

The essential skills/experience for this position are:

• 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

(ICT_TECH TD_2026_27R)