Release Manager

Meet Instinct 👋
Instinct Science is a growing Philadelphia-based animal health company working on unique technology solutions for state-of-the-art veterinary hospitals across the globe. 
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We’re seeking an experienced Release Manager to be the next member of our growing team. The ideal candidate is efficient, organized, detail-oriented, and motivated by working on challenging yet meaningful work that has the potential to shape the entire profession. 
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The Instinct team is fully distributed, so your geographic location doesn’t matter as long as you can overlap with our regular business hours (Mon-Fri 8 am - 5 pm ET). Work hours are flexible. However, this position is an on-call position and should be available for any issues and emergencies that arise outside of normal working hours.
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Position Summary 😺 
You will be instrumental in delivering and maintaining high-quality software. Your contributions and leadership will greatly influence the usability and reliability of the product. 
 
Day-to-day work will consist of scheduling, managing, coordinating, and communicating releases across multiple teams and projects. Additionally, you will work closely with engineers to understand code merges and identify potential branching ramifications. You will also manage and mitigate risks and resolve issues regarding release quality and schedule. You will be part of a close-knit team that is working hard every day to create a better product.
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Responsibilities May Include (but aren't limited to) 💪 
Create, update, and maintain the release process between the development, QA, and support teams.
Lead and maintain an internal release checklist for deployment execution.
Provide company-wide weekly release updates.
Review tickets approved in queue, batch releases, and notify the QA team for regression.
Review releases in progress and organize timing of each release—taking dependencies into account.
Schedule, manage, and coordinate releases across multiple teams and projects.
Work closely with engineers to understand code merges and identify potential branching ramifications.
Manage and mitigate risks and resolve issues regarding release quality and schedule.
Organize releases in our software development tool, Jira and tag tickets appropriately to releases.
Notify QA team members of the release plan.
Notify QA team members of testing deadlines based on release schedule.
Review release notes and identify any tickets that are missing from release notes.
Maintain release notes documentation page.
Communicate release notes with the support team.
Communicate and set expectations with the company on deployment timing.
Coordinate deployment timing with the development team, demo team, and/or sales team, as needed.
Smoke test releases manually and/or using an automated smoke test suite, once release is deployed to production.
Monitor internal logs following production deployments.
Coordinate and assist with deployments for all hotfixes/fires to production.
Continuously improve the release lifecycle.
Be available and on-call for any issues and emergencies that arise outside of normal working hours.
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We’re Looking for Someone With ⚡
At least 3+ years of experience managing and deploying releases, preferably with sophisticated software
Experience writing release notes and communicating deployment timelines
Experience with Jira or a similar software development tool
Experience executing automated test suites with Webdriver IO or a similar automation framework
Familiarity with Github or other modern code repositories
Knowledge of modern devops practices
Experience with Google Sheets and Excel
Strong knowledge of software development and testing processes and methodologies
Experience working closely with cross-functional teams, including development, QA, and support teams
Excellent skills communicating with technical and non-technical teammates
Strong written communication skills
Exceptional attention to detail and excellent time-management skills
Problem-solving and critical thinking skills, with the ability to make sound decisions under pressure
Extensive experience managing multiple tasks and projects
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Bonus Experience 💡​
Experience with CircleCI and Papertrail
Experience writing automated tests using JavaScript or similar language
Familiarity with Elixir
Experience with Notion
Zephyr test case management or other testing repositories
Working efficiently as part of a distributed team
Veterinary or healthcare industry experience
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A Sneak Peek at Team Instinct 🔭
The Instinct team consists of a unique mix of veterinary and technology experts who offer years of experience developing and commercializing point-of-care software for the veterinary industry. 
 
Instinct fosters a diverse, inclusive, transparent, and fun work environment. As a fully distributed team, we value teammates with strong communication and organizational skills. We’re building a company that reflects our care for every individual, treating each team member well by going out of our way to help one another in the short-term and pushing for growth in the long-term. 
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We’re guided by one thing: helping veterinary hospital teams excel. To that end, your work contributions will greatly shape the workflows, staff happiness, and patient care for some of the most advanced veterinary centers on the planet.
 
Salary and Benefits Highlights 🌞
We offer a supportive, innovative, caring work environment.
We pay our team well (flexible based on experience).
We give our team owner-like flexibility over work and time off.
We offer health, vision, dental insurance, and 401K.
We offer a generous home office and professional development stipend.
We provide all-expense-paid travel to veterinary hospitals and our retreats.
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Learn More About Us 👓
https://www.instinct.vet - Corporate website
 
https://pickthebrain.instinct.vet - Our blog called Pick the Brain that has articles that will help you understand a little more about how we engage and help our customers—besides writing awesome software.