Senior Release Manager (Contract)

Drivemode, a Honda company, is looking for a highly technical Senior Release & Service Operations Manager to own and improve the end-to-end software release lifecycle for our connected vehicle and mobile platforms. This role sits at the intersection of Engineering, Product, Quality Assurance, and Service Operations, ensuring that software releases are predictable, technically sound, fully validated, and operationally ready. The ideal candidate understands software architecture, development workflows, Git branching strategies, CI/CD pipelines, integration dependencies, and production operations. This role requires both strong technical judgment and exceptional communication skills, including the ability to coordinate across distributed engineering teams and stakeholders in the United States and Japan.

Responsibilities

Own the release lifecycle from planning and scope definition through development, QA, deployment, and post-release validation; Maintain visibility into upcoming features, bug fixes, technical dependencies, and release commitments; Establish clear release schedules, milestones, readiness criteria, and cutoffs; Work closely with Engineering to understand Git branching strategies, merge status, cherry-picks, backports, release branches, and build dependencies; Independently verify which changes are included in each release and identify missing or incorrectly targeted changes; Understand CI/CD workflows, build pipelines, versioning, deployment processes, and integration dependencies; Maintain a clear understanding of development progress and upcoming work requiring QA validation; Ensure QA teams have visibility into incoming builds, feature scope, technical changes, and testing dependencies; Coordinate release-related defect triage, retesting, regression testing, and verification of fixes; Establish operational readiness criteria for production releases, including monitoring, support handoffs, rollback procedures, and escalation paths; Partner with Engineering and Support to coordinate production incidents, service disruptions, and urgent hotfixes; Facilitate incident communication, technical triage, root cause analysis, and corrective action tracking; Serve as a central point of coordination for release status, technical readiness, risks, and deployment decisions; Communicate effectively with Engineering leadership, Product, QA, Support, and Honda stakeholders; Translate complex technical issues into clear business impact, risks, decisions, and action plans; Develop or improve internal tools, scripts, and dashboards to increase release visibility and reduce manual coordination; Leverage Jira, GitHub, CI/CD platforms, APIs, and test management systems to improve release traceability; Automate repetitive release checks, reporting, and operational workflows where practical

Requirements

7+ years of experience in Technical Release Management, Release Engineering, DevOps, Software Engineering, Technical Program Management, or a closely related technical delivery role; Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle, from requirements and development through testing, deployment, and production operations; Hands-on working knowledge of Git, including branching, merges, cherry-picks, backports, and release management strategies; Experience working with CI/CD pipelines and modern build/deployment workflows; Ability to understand backend architectures, REST APIs, integrations, and dependencies across distributed systems; Experience coordinating releases across multiple engineering teams and complex software environments; Working knowledge of production incident management, change management, troubleshooting, and service operations; Ability to read code, interpret logs, investigate technical issues, and collaborate effectively with software engineers; Experience with Jira, GitHub, and modern development and testing tools; Strong communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills; Demonstrated ability to operate independently, identify risks, drive decisions, and maintain clarity in complex environments

Nice to have

Hands-on scripting or automation experience using Python, Bash, JavaScript, or similar languages; Experience with mobile application releases across iOS and Android; Experience with backend services, cloud platforms, microservices, or connected-device architectures; Familiarity with automotive software, connected vehicles, telematics, or hardware/software integrations; Experience with TestRail, automated testing, or release traceability tooling; Experience with ITIL or ITSM practices, including incident, problem, and change management; Experience working with international teams, particularly Japan-based stakeholders; Japanese language proficiency (business-level or conversational); Experience working with Japanese organizations or navigating cross-cultural communication in US-Japan engineering environments

Benefits

Competitive compensation; excellent benefits