Head of Release - Cambridge

Worldpay (UK) Limited; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

Global Payments is seeking an experienced Release Manager to lead a team responsible for rolling out changes to a high-volume payment gateway. You will define strategy, govern releases across cloud platforms, and ensure safe, predictable deployment with strong stakeholder collaboration.

Leading CI/CD adoption, automation and IaC, you will coordinate with engineering, security, risk and compliance to meet regulatory obligations while maintaining customer experience and operational resilience.

Qualifications

• Nine or more years of release management, software delivery, technology operations or platform delivery experience.
• Seven or more years in management or supervisory roles.
• Experience leading release management across high-availability payment processing services.
• Experience on cloud-hosted and hybrid platforms (AWS, Kubernetes, OpenShift, EKS, EC2, Helm, Jenkins, Terraform).
• Ability to coordinate with cross-functional teams and manage complex releases.

Responsibilities

• Line manage a team of release managers responsible for high-volume gateway rollouts.
• Define and lead the release management strategy for gateways, cloud platforms and services.
• Oversee full release lifecycle: planning, readiness, deployment, validation and post-release activities.
• Ensure changes are delivered safely, predictably and without negative customer impact.
• Coordinate with engineering, product, security, risk and compliance to meet regulatory requirements.

Skills

Release planning

Project management

People leadership

Stakeholder management

Communication

Problem solving

Decision making

Executive interaction

Cross-functional collaboration

Risk assessment

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

OpenShift

Terraform

Jenkins

CI/CD

Job description

Ready to take your career global? Are you ready to unleash your full potential? We’re looking for people who are passionate about payments to chart GlobalPayments’ path to being the largest and most-loved payments company in the world.

What you will be doing

Line manager of a team of release managers responsible for the roll out of changes to a very high volume payment gateway. Defines and leads the release management strategy for GlobalPayments payment gateways, cloud platforms and supporting technology services. Manages the full release lifecycle, including release planning, readiness, approval, deployment, monitoring, post-release validation, audit evidence and continuous improvement. Ensures software, infrastructure, cloud and platform changes are delivered safely, predictably and without negative customer or operational impact. Owns release governance across business-critical, high-availability payment processing services, balancing delivery throughput, operational resilience, regulatory obligations and customer experience. Leads release planning, scheduling, stakeholder engagement and supplier coordination across cross-functional and geographically distributed teams. Manages the work efforts of Release Managers and associated release, deployment and platform delivery resources, including leadership, coaching, performance management and resource planning. Identifies and allocates release, technical, engineering, DevOps, cloud and operational resources to support portfolio and programme delivery priorities. Forecasts release and deployment resource needs based on product demand, portfolio commitments, platform roadmap activity and operational change volumes. Ensures release activity adheres to agreed change, incident, audit, PCI, security, risk and operational control standards. Provides input into product, platform and technology direction where release complexity, operational readiness or deployment risk may affect delivery outcomes. Coordinates with engineering, platform, product, service management, security, risk, audit and compliance teams to verify that releases meet regulatory and operational requirements. Ensures proper application of cloud, DevOps and platform technologies to support safe, repeatable and observable production release outcomes. Champions CI/CD, deployment automation, infrastructure as code, release pipeline improvement and repeatable deployment practices. Ensures release approaches are appropriate for cloud-hosted and hybrid platforms, including technologies such as AWS, Kubernetes, OpenShift, EKS, EC2, Helm, Jenkins and Terraform. Ensures effective monitoring, alerting, logging and observability are in place so deployment progress, service health and customer impact can be understood quickly. Oversees release communications before, during and after deployment, ensuring stakeholders receive timely, accurate and business-relevant updates. Resolves critical release issues, acts as an escalation point for release readiness and deployment risk, and contributes to broader technology and service improvement. Ensures base applications, platforms and supporting services meet appropriate quality, resilience and release-readiness standards. Adheres to departmental software delivery, release management, change management and client delivery process standards. Other related duties assigned as needed.

What you bring

• Knowledge of GlobalPayments products, services, payment processing platforms and customer-facing technology capabilities.
• Knowledge of release management, deployment management, change management, ITIL, service management and operational governance practices.
• Knowledge of cloud, DevOps and platform engineering principles, including CI/CD, automation, infrastructure as code, container orchestration and observability.
• Knowledge of relevant cloud and deployment technologies, including AWS, Kubernetes, OpenShift, EKS, EC2, Helm, Jenkins, Terraform and equivalent tooling.
• Knowledge of regulated technology environments, including PCI, audit, security, risk and evidence requirements.
• Skill in release planning, project management, organisation, communication, analysis and people leadership.
• Skill in leading, supervising and managing effectively under pressure, particularly during complex or time-critical release activity.
• Skill in translating technical deployment risk into clear business impact and actionable decision-making.
• Ability to interact confidently with executive-level stakeholders, internal customers, suppliers and senior technology leaders.
• Ability to analyse business, product and operational needs and determine the related release, platform and technology support required.
• Ability to maintain positive working relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
• Ability to manage multiple releases, projects, activities, dependencies and problem areas concurrently.
• Ability to delegate work to qualified managers, release leads, engineers or delivery resources as appropriate.
• Ability to lead, direct and manage effectively across matrixed, distributed and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to operate independently while maintaining appropriate governance, escalation and stakeholder alignment.
• Ability to exhibit solid decision-making and problem-solving skills under operational pressure.
• Ability to communicate effectively verbally and in writing.

Experience

• Typically requires nine or more years of relevant experience in release management, software delivery, technology operations or platform delivery.
• Typically requires seven or more years of management or supervisory experience.
• Experience leading release management across business-critical, high-availability payment processing services.
• Experience working across cloud-hosted and hybrid platforms, including AWS, Kubernetes, OpenShift, EKS, EC2, Helm, Jenkins and Terraform or equivalent tooling.
• Works under general direction of senior or executive technology management.
• Leads and mentors a team of Release Managers and associated release, deployment and platform delivery resources.
• Participates in the development of release methods, governance, programmes, operating models and people capability across GlobalPayments technology.
• Controls decisions across a broad release management function and acts as a project leader, escalation point and subject matter expert for complex release planning, deployment risk, operational readiness and production change.
• Provides input into strategic direction for release management, cloud deployment practices, DevOps adoption and platform delivery improvement.
• In some instances, this manager may have subordinate managers or supervisors.

About the team

The Release team owns the planning, governance and safe execution of production change across WPG payment gateways, cloud platforms and supporting technology services. The team works closely with engineering, platform, product, service management, security, risk and compliance teams to ensure releases are predictable, controlled and delivered without negative customer or operational impact.

What makes a Globalpayer?

Globalpayers think like a client, act like an owner and win as one team. We’re curious and innovative – always finding better ways to deliver impact. We empower each other to make decisions, and it’s our passion that drives excellence in everything we set out to do. Does this sound like you? Then you sound like a Globalpayer.

#LI-AB1 Global Payments and Worldpay recently joined forces, and we're currently operating across two Workday application systems.