Change & Release Manager

Change & Release Manager: Job Specification

1. Develop and Maintain a TwoYear Release Roadmap: own and update a strategic twoyear product release plan, aligned to HMRC priorities, regulatory commitments, and legacysystem constraints ensuring alignment with end-of-life protocol

1. Quarterly Release Planning & Cycle Management: lead quarterly release planning for all HMRC areas with third-party suppliers, ensuring clear scope, stable build, and test windows, and a controlled golive. Build in SME, engineer, tester, defect, and supplierperformance tolerances/optimism bias. Ensure clear visualisation.
2. Prioritisation & Change Control: run a transparent prioritisation process via a senior prioritisation board, balancing operational need, deadlines, and available capacity. Oversee governance to approve, defer, or reject change.
3. Additional Releases (By Exception): manage adhoc or accelerated releases only when HMRC or ministerial priorities require them, securing approvals through the appropriate governance routes.
4. Risk Management in Legacy Environments: identify and mitigate risks specific to ageing platforms, including stability issues and deployment constraints. Visual risks of the approach of less releases including shared code, and the ability to lose full releases based on one or two areas. Escalate early and propose pragmatic alternatives.
5. CrossProgramme & HMRC Coordination: work with digital partners and operations across HMRC to ensure alignment with fiscalyear commitments.
6. EndtoEnd Release Readiness Assurance: ensure each release passes build, test, performance, and operationalreadiness CABs. Track SME, engineering, testing, and defect timelines and run formal checkpoints.
7. Stakeholder Engagement: primary lead and point of contact for HMRC and third-party suppliers relevant to the product. Maintain strong relationships and provide clear updates to senior prioritisation forums, Deputy Directors, Directors, DGs, ExCom and ministers on progress, risks, and mitigations. Ensures transparent updates from third-party suppliers on their progress
8. Monitoring, Reporting & Governance: lead structured reporting on release performance, quality, and incidents, through the senior prioritisation forum. Ensure transparent progress updates and adherence to HMRC governance, maintain full audit trails, and drive continuous improvement. Monitor key areas of failure and improvement within the third-party supplier product team based on evidence and open and transparent ways of working.
9. Drive Predictability & Delivery Confidence: proactively refine planning, estimation, and supplierengagement processes to improve delivery confidence, forecasting accuracy and longterm stability of the product roadmap.