Release Planner (Project Hire)

The Walt Disney Company (TWDC) is a world-class entertainment and technological leader. Walt’s passion was to continuously envision new ways to move audiences around the world—a passion that remains our touchstone in an enterprise that stretches from theme parks, resorts and a cruise line to sports, news, movies, and a variety of other businesses. Uniting each endeavor is a dedication to creating and delivering unforgettable experiences — and we are constantly looking for new ways to improve these exciting experiences.

Do you want to be a part of a team that creates magic for millions of guests across all of the Disney brands? Behind the scenes, the Enterprise Technology team helps deliver magical digital experiences demonstrating the latest technology; and our teams provide knowledgeable engineering services building critical core platforms and systems to support the innovation and operation of TWDC.

The Release Planner will work with the Sr Manager. of Agile Delivery to establish the baseline understanding our current state processes related to release management across the functional areas in Core Systems & Platforms (CSP), the tools and data available related to those processes and provide the inputs to establish an MVP for generating a consistent Quarterly Release Schedule. This role will help to determine the scope of applications, products and services that will be included in the initial scope of that release reporting and incremental process improvements that are expected to align teams to a consistent approach to ensure a CSP wide Release Schedule. Lastly, you will partner with the Sr. Manager of Agile Delivery and CSP leadership to continue to mature the processes vital to deliver quality release management for future goals and objectives.

What you will bring:

• Demonstrated experience as a Release Manager or in a similar role, with a track record of successful software releases in both Scaled Agile and ITSM environments.
• Experience developing and planning releases with coordination across multiple teams aligned to Scaled Agile or ITSM methodologies to develop a centralized release schedule.
• Experience in integrating existing quality engineering standards into release plans to ensure quality through the delivery and release cycles.
• Proficient understanding of software development practices, version control systems, and deployment methodologies.

What you will be doing:

• Ensure that CSP teams follow consistent processes for change and release planning to ensure consistency in multiple, simultaneous deployments, rollout/rollback processes and resourcing aligned to the published Quarterly Release Schedule
• Consolidate and publish a deployment plan and schedule for Production releases in support of the Quarterly Release Schedule.
• Facilitate, lead, and maintain Change Advisory Board(CAB) meetings and Change process with coordination of process and personnel from different groups to maintain high level of adherence to change process among teams (when applicable).
• Maintain Forward Schedule of Change (FSC), agenda for meetings, Release Calendar, and metrics.
• Coordinate the build and maintenance of QA environments for QA testing and ensuring increased the environment uptime during testing.
• Coordinate the definition of policies and processes for release acceptance.
• Negotiate Release issues and schedules with internal customers and report status to Executives.
• Coordinate cross-functional team transparency and communication to support each Release project plan and post Release/Change review.

Basic Qualifications:

• Minimum of 5+ years of experience in the related field
• Experience in working with delivery teams to ensure documentation standards are met in the SDLC.
• Strong communication skills; both written and verbal. Should have experience communicating with both teams and executives.
• Familiarity with continuous improvement processes and common analytic techniques to deliver release performance metrics and drive continuous improvement  to release planning.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of ITIL/ITSM Release management processes
• Detailed understanding of Change Management processes, dependencies, and release coordination processes within the SDLC
• Foundational understanding of DevOps processes and tools
• Familiarity with Jira and ServiceNow required, familiarity with other work management tools a plus
• Familiarity with Operations, Monitoring & Alerting, and Incident Response best practices a plus
• Relevant certifications such as Agile, Scrum, ITIL, or SAFe would be advantageous.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

This is a 14-month Project Hire position with no guarantee of permanent placement. Disney Worldwide Services, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer.

The hiring range for this position in California is $123,902 - $166,210 per year and in Washington is $129,806 - $174,130 per year. The base pay actually offered will take into account internal equity and also may vary depending on the candidate’s geographic region, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience among other factors. A bonus and/or long-term incentive units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to the full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits, dependent on the level and position offered.