Release Manager

Ministry of Justice (New Zealand); Wellington; On-site; NZD 119,000 - 163,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

4 weeks holiday leave

Flexible work hours

Online professional development portal

Inclusive networks

Job summary

Ministry of Justice (New Zealand) in Wellington seeks a senior Release Manager for a fixed-term full-time role through 31 August 2029. You will own release strategy, governance, and delivery, planning and leading high-risk releases that matter to the courts, the judiciary, and the public.

This role requires accountability, decisive decision-making under pressure, and the ability to lift capability across teams and vendors while protecting service stability.

Qualifications

• 5+ years' experience leading release management in large, complex technology environments, ideally within the public sector or other regulated settings.
• Proven accountability for high-risk, high-impact releases, with confidence making decisions under delivery pressure.
• Demonstrated ownership of release and environment management across programmes, including scheduling, dependency management, and readiness assurance.
• Strong experience designing, embedding, and enforcing release governance, standards, and quality controls across multiple teams and vendors.
• Advanced knowledge of release and deployment methodologies, including automated pipelines, auditability, and tested rollback strategies.
• Hands‑on experience with release tooling and pipelines (e.g. Azure DevOps) and non-production/production environment management.
• Proven ability to influence, coach, and mentor others, building capability and bringing people together to achieve outcomes.
• Strong analytical capability, using data and insights to identify trends, risks, and opportunities and inform system-level decision making.

Responsibilities

• Own release strategy, governance, and delivery for high-risk releases.
• Plan and lead deployments across teams, vendors, and environments.
• Make go/no-go decisions and ensure readiness across stakeholders.
• Lift capability across the organisation while protecting service stability.
• Shape release processes and embed standards across programmes.

Skills

Release management

Governance

Stakeholder management

Decision making

Team mentoring

Analytical thinking

Education

ITIL qualification

PRINCE2/Agile qualification

Tools

Azure DevOps

Job description

Te Haeata/The Opportunity Own the moment change goes live. As Release Manager in this Fixed Term Full Time role until 31 August 2029, you'll be the authority that turns complex digital change into safe, confident go-lives. You'll own release strategy, governance, and delivery — planning and leading high-risk releases that matter to the courts, the judiciary, and the public. This is a senior, influential role where you set standards, manage go/no-go decisions, resolve competing priorities, and ensure readiness across teams, vendors, and environments. You'll shape how releases are done, lift capability across the organisation, and be trusted to protect service stability while enabling progress. If you thrive in complexity, like having real accountability, and want to be known as the person who makes change land safely — this is your role.

Ō pūkenga/Skills and Experience

• 5+ years' experience leading release management in large, complex technology environments, ideally within the public sector or other regulated settings.
• Proven accountability for high-risk, high-impact releases, with confidence making decisions under delivery pressure.
• Demonstrated ownership of release and environment management across programmes, including scheduling, dependency management, and readiness assurance.
• Strong experience designing, embedding, and enforcing release governance, standards, and quality controls across multiple teams and vendors.
• Advanced knowledge of release and deployment methodologies, including automated pipelines, auditability, and tested rollback strategies.
• Hands‑on experience with release tooling and pipelines (e.g. Azure DevOps) and non-production/production environment management.
• Proven ability to influence, coach, and mentor others, building capability and bringing people together to achieve outcomes.
• Strong analytical capability, using data and insights to identify trends, risks, and opportunities and inform system-level decision making.

Desired:

• Relevant IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) qualification, with practical application across change, release, and environment governance.
• Relevant PRINCE2 or Agile qualification, with strong working knowledge of Agile delivery frameworks in complex delivery environments.

Mō mātou/About us

At Te Tāhū o te Ture - the Ministry of Justice, we're committed to strengthening people's trust in the law of Aotearoa, NewZealand. Te Au Reka represents the opportunity of a lifetime, making a profound difference to those who work in and interact with our courts and tribunals. We are seeking to modernise the administration of justice by replacing highly manual, time‑consuming, paper‑based process with a new digital case management solution, transforming the way people access and experience justice in Aotearoa NewZealand. Te Au Reka is a large, complex and unique programme spanning the courts and tribunals of NewZealand. In delivering Te Au Reka we are seeking to build the Ministry's capability to deliver complex programmes of change. Working on Te Au Reka will give you the opportunity to use your knowledge and experience, while developing new ways of working. We are building a team that is highly collaborative, inquisitive and adaptable. Te Au Reka is a game‑changer, and we care deeply about making it a success. Joining Te Tāhū o te Ture means you will become part of an organisation that welcomes and supports people of all gender identities, ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, disabilities and religions.

Ngā painga o tēnei wāhi mahi/What's great about working here

We offer you a range of benefits to support your wellbeing and help make the Ministry a great place to be. These include:

• 4 weeks holiday leave
• flexible work hours where possible
• an online professional development portal
• access to a variety of inclusive and proactive networks

See our full range of benefits here.

Utu ā-tau/Salary

The remuneration band for this role is $118,904 - $163,344. The appointing salary for this role will be between $118,904 - $140,134 based on skills and experience.