Release Train Engineer

Full Job Description

Why work for us?

A career at Janus Henderson is more than a job, it’s about investing in a brighter future together.

Our Mission at Janus Henderson is to help clients define and achieve superior financial outcomes through differentiated insights, disciplined investments, and world-class service. We will do this by protecting and growing our core business, amplifying our strengths and diversifying where we have the right.

Our Values are key to driving our success, and are at the heart of everything we do:

Clients Come First - Always | Execution Supersedes Intention | Together We Win | Diversity Improves Results | Truth Builds Trust

If our mission, values, and purpose align with your own, we would love to hear from you

Your opportunity

You will report to the Global Head of Operations and Regulatory Technology.

Janus Henderson have adopted an Agile framework for change development and implementation. This agile framework is being used to transversally enhance the release cycle, leading to a more efficient and scalable environment.

As the Agile Release Manager, you will be responsible for building upon a Scrum framework. You will facilitate program level planning, alignment, organization and execution of prioritized work. This will require event facilitation, release planning, scrum of scrum ceremonies and working with scrum masters to manage the day-to-day impediments to successful release. To be successful in this role, you will be able to strike a balance between execution on the current release and planning for future releases.

In the role, you will be responsible for aligning to transversal scrum deliverables, ensuring changes can be delivered and working closely with the development teams to ensure that blockers are cleared. You must possess the ability to analyze requirements and succinctly define stories to enable successful development.

You will not only need excellent problem-solving skills, but you should also be able to see the strategic impacts of any cross-team dependencies and escalate where necessary.

A mindset of continuous improvement in terms of ways of working with the ability to influence individuals and teams to adopt better ways of working. This includes not accepting the status quo.

The role will require strong communication and leadership skills as regular reporting with senior stakeholders is expected globally with core impacted teams being in the UK, US, Singapore and Australia.

Duties and responsibilities

You will:

Event and Ceremony Facilitation

• Facilitate program level planning including estimation and creation of sprint (iteration) schedule; facilitate planning readiness through the preparation of planning materials (Vision, Roadmap, Backlogs,) and event scheduling
• Facilitate key ceremonies including Scrum of Scrums, program level retrospectives, release reviews, and other program level meetings with both technology and business stakeholders
• Establish and communicate quarterly and annual calendars for release iterations and program level planning events
• Coordinate activities and enable collaboration across all impacted teams/areas
• Aggregate Team level objectives into Program level objectives and publish them for visibility and transparency
• Broadly communicate release commitments post planning sessions

Reporting, Metrics and Overall Transparency

• Combine metrics from Teams to a Program level reporting view
• Track and report on progress of epic, feature, costs and benefits; understand and operate within the program budget
• Identify internal and external dependencies that impact work; manage program level risks and dependencies across teams; provide input on resourcing to address critical bottlenecks; escalate and remove impediments
• Report planning results and epic status to senior management, business owners, epic owners, product owners and other stakeholders.
• Create, maintain and report high-level program/project and project management maturity, best practices and tools; with an emphasis on moving toward Agile.
• Use MI as a critical tool to drive improved performance

Cross-departmental Alignment

• Work with other technology and business teams/stakeholders to help ensure strategy and execution alignment across the organization
• Support cross application/department/function release planning, coordination and alignment

Coaching

• Keep teams aligned on vision, direction and scope as set by the Program team
• Coach leaders, teams, and Scrum Masters in Agile practices and mindsets
• Ensure Agile governance standards, best practices and required reviews are met
• Support scrum deployment activities to global offices, creating an opportunity for like-minded scrum masters to share experiences and learn from each other
• An open mind to feedback from Agile teams and where appropriate use this to drive improvements

What to expect when you join our firm

• Hybrid working and reasonable accommodations
• Generous Holiday policies
• Excellent Health and Wellbeing benefits including corporate membership to ClassPass
• Paid volunteer time to step away from your desk and into the community
• Support to grow through professional development courses, tuition/qualification reimbursement and more
• All-inclusive approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Maternal/paternal leave benefits and family services
• Complimentary subscription to Headspace – the mindfulness app
• All employee events including networking opportunities and social activities

Must have skills

• RTE and/or SCRUM Master related experience using SAFe Agile delivery frameworks
• Business Program or portfolio management experience
• Experience managing virtual and global distributed teams
• Experience working in a matrixed environment
• SAFe RTE as well as other SAFe certifications desired
• Demonstrated hands on leadership of large-scale process development/improvement initiatives
• Experience with and understanding of concepts of Organizational Change Management
• Power User of Jira or equivalent tooling
• Experience with Product Management tools beneficial