IT Release Manager

We are adding a IT Release Manager to our team!

Who We Are:

Since 1909, National Guardian Life Insurance Company (NGL) has been one of America’s most successful and highly rated independent life insurance companies. We specialize in a suite of innovative products for life’s journey, giving people the financial stability, careful guidance and peace of mind to lead a life filled with confidence, dignity and grace.

NGL's Core Values – integrity, dependability, collaboration, compassion and growth are a foundation of our company and help to build on the interactions we have with our policyholders, partners, funeral homes and each other. We believe in creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for all where diversity is celebrated, and everyone is encouraged to live their best, most authentic self. We offer Employee Resource Groups for employees to get involved, learn, network, and offer professional and personal development opportunities.

With over 100 years of experience, our passion is to serve people. Learn more. 

Work Environment: NGL offers a flexible work environment where employees can work fully remote, hybrid or onsite at our Madison, Wis. office. We support virtual working arrangements in certain states outside of WI.

A Day in the Life:

The IT Release Manager is responsible for planning, managing, and coordinating the release of software features, enhancements, and fixes into production. This role ensures smooth deployments, minimizes risk, and maintains the stability of production environments while balancing the needs of development and operational support teams. The IT Release Manager will collaborate with cross-functional teams, including development, infrastructure, security, and business stakeholders, to ensure readiness and adherence to best practices.

Primary Responsibilities: 

Release Coordination & Deployment

• Oversee the end-to-end release lifecycle, from planning through deployment, ensuring all releases meet business and operational readiness requirements.
• Define and enforce release governance processes, including change management, risk assessment, and deployment planning.
• Coordinate with development teams, quality assurance, and operations to schedule, validate, and execute releases with minimal disruptions.
• Facilitate release readiness reviews, go/no-go decision meetings, and post-implementation reviews.
• Maintain and improve release calendars, ensuring alignment across teams and stakeholders.

Production Readiness & Support Coordination

• Work closely with development teams and team leaders to prepare production support and maintenance plans for new features before go-live.
• Ensure that the teams assuming ownership of support and maintenance are properly engaged, trained, and equipped to manage post-deployment stability.
• Establish clear handoff processes between development and operations, ensuring smooth transitions of ownership.
• Define incident response and rollback procedures for releases to minimize risk and downtime.

Standards, Documentation, & Best Practices

• Set expectations for best practices, documentation, and standards related to production readiness of features and applications.
• Ensure that deployment documentation, release notes, and operational runbooks are consistently created and maintained.
• Establish guidelines for monitoring and observability to ensure newly released features are measurable and traceable in production environments.
• Drive continuous improvement of release processes, leveraging automation and industry best practices to improve efficiency and reduce risk.

Collaboration & Communication

• Serve as the central point of contact for all release-related communications, ensuring alignment across development, QA, operations, and business stakeholders.
• Communicate release plans, schedules, and risk assessments to leadership and stakeholders in a clear and timely manner.
• Collaborate with IT leadership to align release strategies with overall business and IT goals.

Automation & Process Improvement

• Advocate for and support the adoption of CI/CD pipelines and release automation to streamline deployments.
• Identify and implement process improvements that enhance release velocity while maintaining system stability and security.
• Work with DevOps teams to enhance tooling and workflows related to release management, including configuration management and environment provisioning.

Essential to Your Success: 

Required:

• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC) and release management best practices.
• Experience working with development, QA, operations, and infrastructure teams to coordinate releases.
• Knowledge of IT service management (ITSM), incident management, and change management processes.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, release automation, and version control tools (GitHub preferred).
• Excellent organizational, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong problem-solving skills with the ability to assess risks and propose mitigation strategies.

Preferred:

• Experience with cloud environments (AWS preferred).
• ITIL certification or relevant IT service management experience.
• Familiarity with observability tools (Dynatrace preferred)

Education Requirements:

• Preferred:  Associate degree in Information Systems, Business Administration or equivalent work experience.

Years of Experience:

• Minimum:  Experience in IT release management, software deployment, or related fields.

What We Offer:

At NGL, we provide a comprehensive Total Rewards package that includes competitive base pay and benefits designed to offer solutions to help meet your unique life needs.

Benefits:

• 20 days of Paid Time Off growing to 25 days after 5 years
• 11 Paid Holidays (10 company holidays and 1 personal holiday of your choice)
• Health care, dental and vision plans
• Up to $1,500 (Family) or $1,000 (Single) annually towards a Health Savings Account 
• Annual bonus based on company performance
• Paid Parental Leave
• 401(k) match up to 9%
• Paid Sabbatical after 8 years
• Paid Volunteer Time
• Education Assistance Program
• Employee Recognition Program
• And much more!

Click here to learn more about our comprehensive Total Rewards program.

NGL is committed to creating a diverse environment and is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will be considered for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, age, disability, sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions), gender identity or gender expression (including transgender status), sexual orientation, marital status, military service and veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical condition as defined by applicable state or local law, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local laws.

NGL is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities in the recruitment process. To request an accommodation, please contact hrmadison@nglic.com.