Release Manager, Consulting

Cognizant (NASDAQ:CTSH) is a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, dedicated to helping the world's leading companies build stronger businesses. Headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey (U.S.), Cognizant has over 340,000 employees as of January 2025. Cognizant is a member of the NASDAQ-100, the S&P 500, the Forbes Global 1000, and the Fortune 500 and is ranked among the top performing and fastest growing companies in the world.

Cognizant Consulting

At Cognizant, our consultants orchestrate the capabilities to truly change the game across strategy, design, technology and industry/functional knowledge to deliver insight at speed and solutions at scale. Our consulting services elevate the unique abilities and business aspirations of customers and employees and build relationships based on trust and value.

Description:

The Release Manager is responsible for planning, coordinating, and managing the release of changes, enhancements, and updates to existing systems and applications (SAP, Maximo, service now, Appian, integration platform..etc). This role ensures that all releases are delivered smoothly on time, and with minimal disruption to business operations, while maintaining compliance with change management processes and quality standards.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage the end-to-end release process from planning through deployment.

• Coordinate release plans with project teams, system owners, business units, and vendors.

• Ensure successful execution of release activities including pre-release reviews, go/no-go decisions, and post-release validation.

• Identify potential risks associated with releases and develop mitigation plans.

• Oversee deployment activities, including staging, testing, production rollout, and rollback plans when required.

• Act as the primary point of contact for release-related communications.

• Facilitate release meetings and communicate release status, risks, and impacts to stakeholders

• Coordinate with internal teams (IT operations, cybersecurity, vendors, business units) for smooth delivery of releases.

• Ensure releases meet quality standards and business requirements before deployment.

• Monitor the performance of release activities across the full release lifecycle (planning, development, testing, deployment).

• Conduct post-release reviews and implement lessons learned to improve future release processes.

• Develop and improve release policies, processes, and templates and continuously refine release policies, processes, templates, and automation tools to increase efficiency and reduce manual effort.

• Define, measure, and report key performance indicators (KPIs) for the release process, that include but limited to:

  • Number of releases per period (weekly/monthly/quarterly).

  • Release success rate and failure rate.

  • Average lead time per release phase (planning, development, QA/testing, deployment).

  • Percentage of delayed releases and reasons for delays (e.g., planning, development, QA bottlenecks).

  • Rollback frequency and causes.

  • Change-related incidents post-release

• Analyse release performance data to identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement across the release phases.

• Drive continuous improvement by implementing corrective actions and process enhancements based on KPI results and feedback.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in software engineering , information technology, or related field is a minimum

• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC), change management, and release processes.

• Experience with SAP systems, enterprise applications, and system integrations.

• Familiarity with release/change management systems such as Jira.

• Scrum Master certificate is a plus.