Change & Release Specialist

Job ID : 6516
Category : Technology Solutions
Brand : Definity
Regular/Temporary : Regular
Fulltime/Parttime : Full Time
Location : Toronto, Canada

Definity includes some of Canada’s most long-standing and innovative insurance brands, including Economical Insurance, Sonnet Insurance, Family Insurance Solutions, and Petline Insurance. With strong roots that date back to 1871, we’ve grown to become a digital leader in the insurance industry. We’re proud to help our clients and communities adapt and thrive in a world of constant change.

Our promise to you: It’s better here. Why? Because we CARE, and we provide an employee experience that’s collaborative, ambitious, rewarding, and empowering.

Our ambition is to be one of Canada’s leading and most innovative P&C insurers. Come be a part of our journey, and love what you do.

Definity offers a flexible, hybrid work experience where employees work from the office and virtually depending on the type of work they are doing and who they are working with. Leaders partner with their teams to find the right balance of on-site and remote work that best meets the needs of their teams, colleagues, brokers and customers, while ensuring collaboration, teamwork and accountability for goals.

**Summary**

The Release Manager will ensure that all business, platform, and technology releases across the enterprise and adhere to the Definity and industry standards.

**What motivates you?**
- Take ownership and build solutions, focusing on what matters.
- Obsess about customers, listen, engage, and act for their benefit.
- Think big, with curiosity to discover ways to use your agile approach and enable business outcomes.
- Thrive in teams and enjoy getting things done together.
- Do what is right, work with integrity and speak up.

**What you’ll be doing**
- Schedule the release, coordinating between teams, and deployment of release as per the schedule
- Schedule and run Agile ceremonies for the Release Pod
- Identify the risks that can delay the release and manage them, such that the scope scheduled, and quality of the release is not affected
- Manage the release environments and keep them healthy. Make sure right build versions are going into production and release environments
- Coordinate the release schedule and resources across different teams
- Plan the release of project deliverables and release life cycle
- Knowledge in branching, merging and readiness for implementation activities
- Ensuring the necessary tools and processes are in place to promote and advance the practice of continuous build
- Work closely with the technical leads, QA leads and DevOps leads for a smooth and successful release
- Track the progress and find issues, if any. Always work to improve the process of release
- Represent the releases at CAB and TAB meetings and resolve impediments
- Keep leaders and business stakeholders updated about the release progress
- Conduct Release Readiness reviews, Milestone Reviews, and Business Go/No-Go reviews
- Produce Deployment, Run Books, and Implementation Plans
- Work with tech leads to resolve any branches and code merge issues
- Maintains a release repository and manages key information such as build and release procedures, dependencies, and notification lists
- Insurance COTS product knowledge is an asset

**What you bring to the role**
- Experience with the following tools: Docker, Jenkins, ELK, Artifactory, Ansible, Vault, Consul, Kubernetes, Terraform, JIRA, Confluence, nginx, HA Proxy, SoftLayer, GIT, Bitbucket
- Understanding of Cloud technologies (AWS and GCP) and tools
- Knowledge of DevOps and continuous integration and development (CI/CD) tools. Ability to identify gaps and implement improvements to the CI/CD pipeline
- Relevant tools assessment and replacement/upgrade recommendations based on current and trending Best Practices
- Knowledge in branching, merging and readiness for implementation activities
- Cloud Release Management and Scrum master skills
- Stakeholder management and cross team management
- Clear understanding of Version control and types of deployment

**Go ahead and expect a lot — you deserve it, and we’ve got it**:

- Hybrid work schedule for most roles
- Company share ownership program
- Pension and savings programs, with company-matched RRSP contributions
- Paid volunteer days and company matching on charitable donations
- Educational resources, tuition assistance, and paid time off to study for exams
- Focus on inclusion with employee groups, support for gender affirmation surgery, access to BIPOC counsellors, access to programs for working parents
- Wellness and recognition programs
- Discounts on products and services

**Background checks**
This role requires successful clearance of a background check (including criminal checks and leadership references).

LI-Hybrid