Senior Software Release Manager

Description

Job Summary:

The Senior Software Release Manager will lead the strategic execution of Product Releases and complex airline releases by driving cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder alignment, and issue resolution. Oversee testing, prioritize defects, and manage customer negotiations to ensure seamless deployment, schedule consensus, and high-quality outcomes. This role requires strong software technical understanding, senior-level delivery and project management skills, excellent interpersonal skills, strong process understanding, and the ability to clearly present release status to stakeholders.

Experience in complex customer-facing software delivery environments is required.

Duties and Responsibilities:

· Coordinate software release processes, including planning, scheduling, and deployment, with a strong focus on quality and timeliness
· Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as Engineering, Product Management, and Program Management to ensure effective communication and alignment throughout the release lifecycle, including SW and System Engineering, integration, and customer-facing teams. Provide leadership and influence across cross-functional team members so they remain focused, put effort into improving execution, remove blockers, and meet agreed deadlines
· Oversee defect prioritization and resolution efforts, negotiating scope and schedule to maintain high standards of quality.
· Manage release risks by identifying potential blockers, developing contingency plans, and ensuring proactive issue resolution. Provide recovery plans when release dates or quality are at risk
· Document and communicate release plans, progress, and outcomes to stakeholders, including senior leadership and customers. Prepare clear release status updates, dashboards, decision points, risks, dependencies, and customer/program impact for stakeholders.
· Participate actively in development and testing phases, providing insights and oversight to maintain release integrity
· Support customer meetings when necessary, supporting complex deployments with established release strategies and clear status communication for customer-facing software deliveries.
· Contribute to stakeholder communication, ensuring alignment and consensus on release timelines and outcomes
· Own release schedule, milestones, dependencies, risks, blockers, and action items.
· Lead release readiness reviews and delivery checkpoints.
· Maintain Jira and MS Project views to support release planning, schedule tracking, issue follow-up, and management reporting Requirements
· Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience
· 6+ years of experience in software release management, technical project management, software delivery, or software program management
· Experience in complex customer-facing software delivery environments, preferably within aviation, aerospace, IFE, embedded systems, or other integrated technology platforms
· Strong software technical understanding, including software development lifecycle, release lifecycle, software features, defects, builds, integration issues, validation, deployment readiness, and customer-impacting software issues
· Ability to translate technical software issues into clear schedule, quality, risk, dependency, and customer-impact language
· Experience working closely with software engineering, QA, system engineering, integration, validation, product, program management, and customer-facing teams
· Strong hands-on experience with Jira and MS Project, including release tracking, task ownership, dependencies, blockers, milestones, dashboards, and schedule management
· Skilled in project planning and execution, including ownership of release…