Release Train Engineer at Old Mutual

Job Description

As part of Old Mutual’s digital transformation journey, our vision is to radically redefine customer and advisor experiences by understanding and delivering what matters to them while striving to become the leading digital financial services organisation in the continent. The Release Train Engineer (RTE) role will ensure the success of the MyOldMutual Digital Programme through managing processes, engagements, stakeholders, and execution to drive rapid delivery of solutions to customers.

As a Release Train Engineer, you will act as an uber Scrum Master, interacting with various teams and leaders in various levels of the organisation. To be effective in this role, you have a refined and broader understanding of how Agile (and SAFe) deliver value to the organisation

Responsibilities

• Elevate and expose the ART’s challenges to the leadership team and inform the broader group to  propose resolutions.
• Produce meaningful metrics to assist the teams and provide support on how to interpret the metrics  and take the correct course correct to measure business benefits.
• Analyse a situation, apply critical thinking, and organise the teams around a solution by guiding the conversations with the Scrum Master and teams as required.
• Produce executive program reports on performance, risks and provide proposals to mitigate risks
• Create visibility of work at team and programme level to optimise value
• Manage, create, and communicate clear timelines for Programme Increments (PIs) and iterations.
• Facilitate PI Planning activities at a programme level and the actual PI planning event across multiple teams in the programme and ensure the teams are prepared for all ceremonies.
• Clearly articulate and communicate  team PI objectives into Programme PI objectives and ensure team visibility, transparency and understanding..
• Where necessary coach leaders, teams, and Scrum Masters in agile practices and mind-sets to remove team blockers and resolve team dependencies.
• Facilitate regular synchronisation sessions , including the Core Team sync and Programme Sync and session for Scrum Masters to ensure awareness and alignment across deliveries
•  Facilitate System / PI Demos and ensure that teams share a holistic delivery comprising feature delivery, customer value and tracking against agreed targets and business outcomes.
• Manage impediments to ensure  avoid impact on the PI.
• Collaborate with Product and Solution Management, Product Owners, Product Managers, and other stakeholders to ensure strategy alignment and execution.

Technical and other skills:

• In-depth knowledge of agile methodology and frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, Scaled Agile (SAFe) etc.
• In-depth understanding of the SAFe guardrails to improve, assess, and measure ways of work through maturity surveys
• Strong knowledge of Scrum theory, rules and practices and ceremonies. Knowledge about other methodologies other than Agile-Scrum, so that he/she can explain other methodologies to motivate the team if needed.
• Understand the value of teamwork and program metrics and track performance.
• Measure  delivery against programme plan and commitments:
• Quality.
• Time to market.
• Team engagement.
• Business and customer outcomes
• Customer engagement and satisfaction
• Manage stakeholder, have negotiation and  communication Skills.
• May be required to drive the change management, coaching leaders, and teams.

Experience

• Minimum 6 years of experience in complex project and program management roles with at least with 3 years leading Scrum teams.
•  Working in an agile organisation using Scrum, XP, Kanban, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), or other scaling model.
•  running and facilitating core meetings and activities such as PI planning events/ceremonies and pre- PI planning activities across multiple teams in a programme, various sync sessions, demos and retros.
• Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation and  communication Skills
• Previous experience in programme/ART reporting for leadership teams including executive reporting
• JIRA/Confluence experience and/or other relevant tools.
• Strong technical aptitude and experience leading teams in delivering quality software
• Track record of agile delivery in an enterprise software organisation

Qualifications

• Relevant 3 or 4-year bachelor’s degree in computer science or Engineering is advantageous
• SAFE or Agile Certification (Preferred)

Skills

Agile Framework, Agile Methodologies, Coaching Leaders, Communication, Leadership, People Management, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Software Delivery, Team Member Engagement

Education

Bachelors Degree (B) (Required)