Change and Release Analyst (ITS) at Investec

Description

• The Change & Release Analyst is responsible for ensuring that technology changes and releases are planned, assessed, approved, implemented, and reviewed in a controlled and risk managed manner. This role ensures the stability and integrity of the production environment by preventing change related incidents, improving release quality, and enabling predictable, compliant delivery across all IT domains. This role supports the governance of IT Change Management and Release Management processes and plays a key part in safeguarding service resilience and client experience.

Key Responsibilities

• Coordinate and manage end-to-end change requests within ServiceNow Change Management. 
• Ensure all Change Requests (CRs) contain accurate technical details, impact assessments, backout plans, and testing evidence. 
• Validate risk levels, business impact, and resource readiness for each change. 
• Facilitate Change Advisory Board (CAB) and Emergency CAB (eCAB) sessions. 
• Monitor compliance with change policies, SLAs, and governance controls. 
• Lead, mentor, and manage a team of Change Analysts and Release Analysts. 
• Conduct quality checks on high risk or complex changes. 
• Analyse changes related failures and recommend improvements to prevent recurrence. 
• Ensure appropriate stakeholder approvals and business signoffs are obtained. 
• Support problem investigations involving change induced incidents. 
• Provide insights into change driven operational risks and stability concerns. 
• Support planning, scheduling, and coordinating software and infrastructure releases across technology teams. 
• Ensure release packages include all required artefacts (build notes, test results, deployment plans). 
• Coordinate go live execution, validations, and hypercare activities. 
• Track release readiness and ensure alignment with freeze periods, service windows, and business availability requirements. 
• Validate that all releases meet deployment prerequisites and production hardening standards. 
• Work with engineering, testing, and operations teams to ensure changes are safe, tested, and well documented. 
• Support pre-implementation checks (PIR/SIR, dependency validation, sequencing). 
• Ensure CMDB/service mapping data is analysed to identify upstream/downstream impacts. 
• Produce regular reports on change volumes, success rates, risk trends, failed changes, and release performance. 
• Provide insights into environment stability and recommend process improvements. 
• Track metrics such as Change Success Rate, Emergency Change Rate, and Change Failure Impact. 
• Identify automation opportunities (e.g., change templates, deployment workflows, approvals). 
• Build strong working relationships with engineering teams, developers, testers, and business stakeholders. 
• Ensure clear communication regarding change schedules, release impacts, and deployment risks. 
• Coordinate with Incident & Problem Management to improve cross process alignment and knowledge sharing. 
• Act as a trusted advisor for teams planning changes, ensuring risk aware and compliant execution. 
• Ensure all changes adhere to Investec's governance standards, policies, and regulatory obligations. 
• Support internal and external IT audits with evidence, control descriptions, and process compliance. 
• Address noncompliance findings with corrective actions and process updates.

Qualifications, Experience and Skills

• 3–5 years of IT experience, including at least 2 years in Change Management or Release Management within a complex enterprise environment.
• Bachelor's degree in information technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or an IT Diploma/NQF 6+ or relevant experience
• Strong understanding of ITIL Change, Release, and Configuration Management practices.
• Experience using ServiceNow Change Management or similar ITSM platforms.
• Strong analytical, coordination, communication, and documentation skills.
• Ability to assess risk, manage dependencies, and ensure process compliance
• ITIL Foundation or higher certification. 
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals – AZ900
• Experience in financial services or regulated industries. 
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, automated deployments, and cloud native release practices. 
• Familiarity with CMDB, service mapping, and observability platforms.