Release Manager C2C contract Charlotte NC (Onsite)

Role:Technical Change & Release Manager

Location:Charlotte NC (Onsite)

Duration:Long Term Contract

Rate:$55/hr. on C2C

Key Responsibilities

• 1. Release Governance & Calendar Management
• Own the integrated MMC release calendar across production releases, hotfixes, emergency changes, and enterprise release windows.
• Coordinate release schedules, change review milestones, approval deadlines, testing signoffs, blackout periods, and implementation windows.
• Maintain visibility of release status, risks, owners, dependencies, and readiness across MMC applications and payment rails.
• Drive adherence to release governance standards and enterprise change management requirements.
• 2. Change Readiness & ServiceNow Governance
• Ensure production changes are submitted, reviewed, and approved within required timelines.
• Validate completeness of change records, implementation plans, validation procedures, backout strategies, risk assessments, and approvals.
• Identify and resolve readiness gaps before production implementation.
• Drive accurate closure, documentation, evidence collection, and compliance with change management standards.
• 3. Release Readiness, Risk & Dependency Management
• Lead release readiness reviews and Go/No-Go decision processes.
• Assess technical dependencies across applications, APIs, databases, cloud platforms, Kubernetes environments, batch processes, and shared services.
• Coordinate impact analysis for cross-rail and shared-platform changes.
• Ensure validation coverage, production support readiness, monitoring readiness, and contingency planning for high-risk deployments.
• 4. Release Execution & Recovery Planning
• Coordinate release execution activities, deployment sequencing, communications, validation checkpoints, and escalation procedures.
• Partner with engineering teams to define deployment, rollback, fallback, and recovery strategies.
• Support complex production events and ensure clear communication during implementation windows.
• Minimize customer impact through disciplined release controls and operational excellence.
• 5. Metrics, Reporting & Continuous Improvement
• Develop dashboards and executive reporting for release health, change compliance, release risk, implementation success rates, emergency changes, and closure discipline.
• Conduct post-release reviews and identify recurring process, tooling, or governance issues.
• Drive automation and process improvements that increase release quality and reduce operational overhead.
• Support audit readiness through accurate change records, approvals, validation evidence, and release documentation.
• 6. AI-Driven Release Intelligence & Automation
• Leverage AI tools to automate release readiness reviews, change validation, dependency analysis, impact assessments, and release reporting.
• Use AI-powered insights to identify release risks, predict implementation issues, and recommend remediation actions.
• Partner with engineering teams to implement AI-assisted release governance, operational analytics, workflow automation, and executive reporting.
• Continuously evaluate emerging AI capabilities to improve release effectiveness, compliance, and deployment success rates.

Key Qualifications and Experience

• 7+ years of experience in Change Management, Release Management, Production Governance, DevOps Operations, Site Reliability Engineering, or IT Service Management.
• Experience managing enterprise release calendars, change governance processes, CAB reviews, deployment readiness, and production implementation activities.
• Strong working knowledge of ServiceNow Change Management, including Change Records, CTASKs, approvals, configuration items, implementation workflows, and reporting.
• Experience coordinating large-scale releases across application, infrastructure, cloud, platform engineering, and support organizations.
• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, cloud platforms, APIs, databases, observability platforms, and production support processes.
• Experience with release risk management, deployment validation, incident response, rollback planning, and operational governance.
• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management skills.
• AI & Automation Experience (Required)
• Experience using AI copilots, generative AI platforms, or machine learning tools to improve operational processes.
• Ability to use AI for release planning, impact analysis, risk identification, change record quality reviews, and knowledge management.
• Experience leveraging AI for dashboard creation, executive reporting, workflow automation, and operational analytics.
• Ability to write effective prompts and use AI-assisted tools to summarize data, identify patterns, generate insights, and support release decision-making.
• Understanding of responsible AI usage, governance, data security, and risk management in enterprise environments.

Preferred Experience

• Banking, Payments, Financial Services, or other highly regulated environments.
• Experience supporting payment platforms such as RTP, ACH, Wires, FedNow, Zelle, Internal Transfers, Bill Pay, or Card Processing.
• Experience with ServiceNow, Jira, GitLab, Jenkins, SHIELD, Rancher/Kubernetes, Datadog, Splunk, Kibana, Azure, Power BI, and Confluence.
• Experience supporting cloud migrations, resiliency programs, failover testing, production modernization initiatives, or platform engineering organizations.
• Familiarity with ITIL Change, Release, Incident, and Problem Management practices.

SKILLS: Automated Release Management