Release Train Engineer

Job description

Position Summary:

 

The Global Tax Platform (GTP) team is looking for an experienced Release Train Engineer / Program Manager to lead the Agile Release Train (ART) leveraging the Agile methodology. At EY, RTEs are servant leaders and coaches for an Agile/Scrum trains. 

The RTEs facilitate processes.

They help remove impediments and foster an environment for high-performing team dynamics, continuous flow, and relentless improvement design – by defining and integrating standards, patterns, tools, and techniques within the platform and between the platform and consuming systems/applications.

 

The RTE role is in the Portfolio Management Office (PMO) pillar. The main function of this pillar is to ensure that projects and programs forming part of specific portfolios are completed on time and on budget and aim to exceed the business expectations.

Essential Functions of the Job:
·  Exhibits Lean-Agile leadership. Exhibits the behaviors of a Lean-Agile Leader with a Lean-Agile mindset.
·  Establish, manage and optimize value through the ART.
·  Establish and communicate cadence for program Increments (PIs)
·  Facilitate PI Planning; and PRE-PI Planning and help create a PI roadmap with the help of Bas and Product Owners.
·  Facilitate the PI planning event.
·  Help the BA team to summarize the PI Objectives into Program PI Objectives and publish them for visibility and transparency
·   Assist tracking the execution of features and capabilities across the train 
Builds a high-performing team. Focuses on ever-improving team dynamics and performance.
·  Communicates with management and outside stakeholders. Helps protect the team from uncontrolled injection of work.
·  Promote Continuous Delivery and other technical practices.
·  Work with the Scrum Masters to help coordinate work across teams in the release train
·   Identifies high-level risks, assumptions, and constraints and implements approved actions and workarounds to minimize the impact of risks on the program/ train
·  Communicate any development or resourcing roadblocks to leadership and facilitate resolution.
·  Creates/implements solutions to obstacles/challenges throughout the course of the PIs.
·  Facilitates solutions across teams, leveraging experiences and lessons learned.
·  Develops and maintains relationships with stakeholders beyond IT Services, including (but not limited to) Business, Finance, and Legal.
·  Improves team performance by building team cohesiveness, leading, mentoring, training, and motivating in order to facilitate cooperation among the team.
·  Measures Team performance using appropriate tools and techniques to monitor progress, identify and quantify any variances, perform any required corrective actions, and communicate to all stakeholders.
·  Demonstrate business skills with the ability to effectively negotiate priorities across multiple groups/teams.

Analytical/Decision Making Responsibilities:
·  Strong team player, able to work effectively as part of cross-functional and distributed teams across multiple time zones.
·  Effective analytical skills to grasp complexities and perceive relationships among problems, issues and solutions.
·  Excellent communicational skills (stakeholder management, negotiation, facilitation, influencing) including strong skills in active listening to improve team effectiveness and performance.
·  Dedication to meet program deadlines in a timely manner.
·  Able to operate independently and adapt quickly to change.
·  Ability to clearly articulate both problems and proposed solutions.
·  Proactive approach to identifying issues and presenting solutions and options, and where appropriate, leading to resolution.

Knowledge and Skills Requirements: 
·  Experienced in leading Trains/Programs leveraging Agile methodology.
·  Seasoned project/ program management knowledge is required to lead projects. Mastery of the IT Services project/program management methodology is essential
·  The ability to write and speak clearly is fundamental to the position’s lead role in managing projects of considerable complexity across functions and geographies.
·  Facilitation skills are required to lead meetings and guide participants toward a meeting's objectives. Influencing skills are essential to obtain results from various project team members who may have other priorities and deadlines.
·  Experience managing cross-functional disciplines of development, test and operational roles.
·  Exposure to project management principles and methodology.
·  TAX domain knowledge is extremely helpful.
·  Experience with agile project management methodologies:
·  Leading and coaching teams in Scrum adoption (SAFE and some other varieties).
·  Plans Scrum implementations within the organization.
·  Facilitates Scrum events as requested or needed such as: Quarterly Planning, Sprint Planning, Sprint Reviews, Sprint Demos and Sprint Retrospectives.
·  Facilitate daily Scrum activities and metrics such as: Stand-Ups, updates to burn-down spreadsheets and charts, velocity and backlog reviews.
·  Remove roadblocks reported by the team, which could require cross-team collaboration and or escalation, possibly up to executive leadership.
·  Communicate and work directly with the Product Owner to consistently maintain the product backlog and handle changes both to the product backlog, executing sprint and prioritizing the backlog to generate higher business value.
·  Experience managing vendors and service providers to meet business and company goals.
·  Experience with managing teams, onshore, remote and offshore teams to work towards development best practices.
·  Ability to multi-task and effectively manage priorities. Ability to juggle multiple projects, demands, and reprioritize as necessary to align with changing business objectives.

Supervision Responsibilities:
·  Works with limited direction and oversight.
·  Provide supervision and direction to team members and staff.

Other Requirements:
·  Occasional overnight travel may be required
·  Occasional weekend work may be required to support deployment efforts
Job Requirements: 
·  A bachelor's degree (computer science, engineering, accounting, finance preferred) or equivalent work experience. Master's degree preferred
·  5-10 years of experience working under agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, XP, DevOps, etc.).
·  5-10 years as a program manager/ Release Train engineer
·  Demonstrate strong written and oral communication skills in English to interact with the business in a clear and effective manner.
·  5-7 years of relevant experience. Management experience a plus.
·  Experience in working with virtual teams
·  Agile methodologies Certification (e.g. SAFe, SCRUM, other) or Project management certification like PMP, PMI-ACP
·  Scrum Master Certification, PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner, or SAFe Practitioner
·  SAFe Program Consultant or SAFe Release Train Engineer certification a plus.
·  IT Infrastructure, CLOUD and/or SW development background.
·  MS office tool understanding (Word, Excel, PowerPoint is excluding)
·  Project management like Azure DevOps/Jira or related.
·  Virtual & collaboration such as SharePoint/confluence/virtual boards/etc.

EY provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status.