Change & Release Specialist

Deka Minas Pty Ltd; Sandton; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 800,000; Full time

Job summary

A technology services company located in Sandton is seeking a Change & Release Specialist. The successful candidate will be responsible for managing change processes and coordinating software releases using best practices. This role requires expertise in CI/CD pipelines, cloud environments, and strong collaboration with multiple stakeholders. A bachelor's degree and 5+ years of relevant experience are required.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in release/change management or DevOps.
• Relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, ITIL) preferred.
• Experience with cloud-native deployment practices.

Responsibilities

• Own the change process, assess risks, and align with business goals.
• Coordinate software releases and manage CI/CD pipelines.
• Act as a liaison between development, operations, and stakeholders.

Skills

Change Management

CI/CD Pipeline Management

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

Cloud Environments (AWS, Azure, GCP)

Security Compliance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in information technology or related field

Tools

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Change & Release Specialist required in Sandton. This role is responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing changes and software releases by ITIL4 best practices and ensures that changes are implemented with minimal service disruption and that releases are delivered efficiently and reliably into the production environment.

Main Responsibilities :

• End-to-End Change Management : Own the change process, including assessing, authorizing, and scheduling changes, while evaluating risks and ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Change Advisory Board (CAB) Facilitation : Lead CAB meetings, ensure timely decisions, and maintain thorough documentation and post-implementation reviews.
• Release Planning and Execution : Coordinate software and infrastructure releases, defining schedules and ensuring controlled, repeatable deployments with rollback plans.
• CI / CD Pipeline Management : Execute and maintain CI / CD pipelines for cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), using blue-green, canary, or rolling deployment strategies.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) : Implement automated infrastructure deployments using tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi, and support containerized services (Docker, Kubernetes, Helm).
• Pre-Production Environment Management : Maintain consistent pre-production environments mirroring production, managing lifecycle, configuration, and access controls.
• Monitoring and Incident Response : Integrate third-party monitoring tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog) and define alerting mechanisms for post-deployment validation and root cause analysis.
• Security and Compliance : Incorporate security scanning tools (e.g., Snyk, Trivy, SonarQube) into pipelines, enforce secure deployment practices, and ensure compliance with standards like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and NIST.
• Stakeholder Collaboration and Communication : Act as a liaison between development, operations, QA, and stakeholders, aligning release / change activities with business priorities and conducting workshops / training.
• Documentation and Continuous Improvement : Maintain release documentation, track metrics, and contribute to retrospectives for ongoing process enhancement.

Requirements :

Bachelor’s degree in information technology, Computer Science, Data Science, or a Business Administration, or a related field. Relevant certifications (e.g., PMP, ITIL) preferred.

5 years or more experience in release / change management, DevOps, or cloud infrastructure engineering.

Experience with public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and cloud-native deployment practices.

Proven hands-on experience building and managing CI / CD pipelines and deploying applications using blue-green or canary release strategies.

Familiarity with Kubernetes, Docker, and container orchestration.

Strong understanding of pre-production / test environment architecture and best practices

Please note that by submitting your personal information to Deka Minas you free-willingly issue the business consent to make use of such data for the specific purpose of securing you either permanent or temporary employment. Our business makes use of a POPIA compliant database and you have the right to access, right to correction and right to deletion of your personal information