Release Manager

About Us
The Ontario Cannabis Store provides safe, responsible access to recreational cannabis for adults 19 and older. We operate the sole legal online store for recreational cannabis in Ontario and are the provincial wholesaler of cannabis for private retail stores.

Working at the OCS is a unique opportunity to be part of an agile start-up in a ground-breaking new industry. We're a diverse team passionate about delivering a great customer experience, working together with mutual respect and building value out of our differences. We're an inclusive organization that understands that delivering great results comes out of ensuring every voice is heard.

About The Role
We're looking for a Release Manager to oversee the planning, coordination, and execution of software releases across our organization and technology platforms. In this role, you'll ensure software products are delivered on time, within scope, and meet quality standards. You'll collaborate closely with cross-functional teams including in-house and external development teams, IT QA, and DevOps—to streamline the release process and improve delivery efficiency.

With a primary focus on PaaS, IaaS, and SaaS platforms, this role also serves as a Release Coordinator, responsible for building, promoting, and continuously improving our release management policies and release plans. You'll ensure these practices align with a dynamic set of business priorities and support the organization's strategic roadmap.

About Your Day

• Define and manage release schedules, ensuring alignment with project timelines and business objectives.
• Maintain a unified release calendar for all teams and services and ensure dependencies across components and teams are identified and managed.
• Oversee and orchestrate deployments across pre-production and production.
• Establish and enforce quality standards for releases, conduct reviews and audits as needed. Serve as the point of contact during release windows, managing communication and escalations.
• Identify potential risks and develop mitigation strategies to minimize impact on release timelines.
• Confirm that deliverables meet acceptance criteria before deployment and validate successful deployment and ensure post-release support is in place.
• Work regularly with OCS IT business analysts, architects, development and QA teams, as well as our external business and Strategy and Transformation departments.
• Facilitate communication between development, QA, product management, and operations teams to ensure seamless release execution.
• Regularly update stakeholders on release progress, potential issues, and overall performance metrics through dashboards, reports, and status updates.
• Manage expectations around release scope, timelines, and risks.
• Maintain comprehensive release notes and documentation for all releases, including versioning, change logs, and user manuals.
• Promote automation to reduce manual intervention and improve consistency and ensure version control strategies and branching models support reliable releases.
• Continuously evaluate and improve release management processes and tools to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.
• Lead release retrospectives, contribute to root cause analysis for incidents and track metrics like release frequency, failure rates, MTTR, and deployment lead time.

About
About You

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent work experience)
• 5+ years of experience as a Release Manager or in a similar role within software development environments.
• 5+ years of experience in Vendor Management/Managed Services.
• 3+ years of experience in one or multiple IT areas including but not limited to: IT Infrastructure, public cloud infrastructure, engineering and/or software architecture design and DevOps
• Experience working in an agile development environment is preferred
• Experience with Azure IaaS/PaaS is an asst
• Experience with Dynamics 365 is an asset
• Experience with the Atlassian suite of tools.
• Experience with common architecture frameworks such as TOGAF is an asset
• Excellent problem solving and decision-making skills.
• Superior communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Understanding of IT Strategy and Transformation pertaining to IT Managed Services, IT Service Management (ITSM) and ITIL v3 industry

About The Job

• Location: Toronto, ON near York Mills and Yonge Street
• Hours of Work: 36.25 a week
• Employment Type: Full-Time, Permanent
• Required Travel: Rare, usually within the GTA

Compensation
The target hiring range for this position is $95,000-105,000. This is a pay grade 7 role, with a salary range of $ 82, $ 123,507.59.
Placement in the salary range will be based on factors such as market conditions, internal equity, and candidate experience, skills, and qualifications relevant to the role.
We are committed to providing an accessible, equitable and inclusive candidate and employee experience. We provide reasonable accommodation throughout the recruitment process and in employment. If you require an accommodation please let us know, we will work with you to meet your needs.