Senior Release Manager Position

Start Date: 28/05/2026

End Date: 28/05/2027

Location: Brussels

Regime: Full-time

Description:

The Release Manager is responsible for orchestrating, governing, and safeguarding the end-to-end release process across the CMS 2.0 program. The role ensures that releases from multiple vendors and projects are aligned, controlled, and deployed in a consistent and reliable manner, minimizing risks to the platform and business operations.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Multi-Vendor Release Coordination
   • Coordinate and align release planning across multiple vendors, domains, and project teams.
   • Ensure a consolidated and realistic release calendar across CMS 2.0, aligning with CMS 1.0 releases if needed.
   • Facilitate alignment between interdependent deliveries and manage cross-team dependencies.
   • Act as the central point of contact for all release-related activities.
2. Release Governance & Process Management
   • Define, implement, and enforce the release management framework for the program.
   • Ensure adherence to release stages, further set up of quality gates and approval processes.
   • Maintain clear release criteria (entry/exit) and ensure readiness before deployment.
   • Drive continuous improvement of release processes through automation and release practices.
3. Release Impact & Risk Management
   • Own and facilitate the release impact assessment process across all involved parties.
   • Ensure that functional, technical, operational, and business impacts are clearly identified and managed.
   • Support projects and vendors in applying the release impact procedure consistently.
   • Proactively identify risks (e.g., conflicts, data inconsistencies, performance issues) and ensure mitigation actions are in place.
4. CMS 1.0 & CMS 2.0 Alignment
   • Ensure alignment and coordination between CMS 2.0 releases and ongoing CMS 1.0 operations.
   • Maintain visibility on dependencies and constraints between both environments.
   • Safeguard business continuity during the transition phase.
   • Provide clear reporting and oversight on combined release impacts across both platforms.
5. Communication & Stakeholder Management
   • Provide transparent and structured communication on release planning, status, risks, and decisions.
   • Align with program governance bodies, project leads, vendors, and operational teams.
   • Facilitate release boards or forums to support decision-making.
6. Monitoring & Reporting
   • Track release progress, risks, and issues across all stakeholders.
   • Provide consolidated reporting at the program level.
   • Ensure post-release evaluation and lessons learned are captured and applied.
7. CI/CD Pipeline Governance & Enablement
   • Define and promote a standardized CI/CD strategy across all vendors and teams contributing to the CMS 2.0 platform.
   • Ensure alignment on build, integration, testing, and deployment pipelines to enable consistent and reliable releases.
   • Safeguard the integration of multiple vendor pipelines into a coherent end-to-end release flow.
   • Ensure that automated testing (unit, integration, regression) is embedded within the CI/CD pipelines to support release quality.
   • Monitor pipeline performance (e.g., build success rate, deployment frequency, failure recovery) and drive improvements.
   • Collaborate with architecture and platform teams to ensure pipelines are aligned with platform standards, security, and compliance requirements.
   • Promote release automation and shift-left practices to reduce manual intervention and increase release predictability.

Skills:

Must Have:

• Proven experience in testing context (3 years).
• Proven experience in coordinating and facilitating operational teams.
• Proven experience in multi-stakeholder release coordination (multiple teams) (2 years).
• Proven experience with CI/CD pipelines and release automation (2 years).
• Proven experience with the use of an ITSM tool such as Topdesk or others.
• Proven experience in setting up and improving release management processes.
• Proven experience with release governance and risk management.
• Proven experience in translating release strategy into operational impact.
• Demonstrable knowledge of MS Office applications, especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint (clearly indicated in CV).
• Relevant work experience in the domain of Release Management (5 years).
• The candidate must convincingly demonstrate a structured, proactive, and solution-oriented mindset during an interview.
• The person must be able to challenge releases.

Language Requirement: English at European CEFR level C1.

Should Have:

• Proven experience with Topdesk.
• Certification: ITIL V4.0 Foundation or higher.
• Candidate holds an ISTQB Foundation certificate.
• Language Requirement: Dutch or French at European CEFR level C1.
• Language Requirement: Understanding of the second national language at European CEFR level B2.