Senior Software Release Manager

Location: Brea, California, United States

Department: Software Engineering

Workplace: hybrid

Employment Type: full

Description

Job Summary:

The Senior Software Release Manager will lead the strategic execution of Product Releases and complex airline releases by driving cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder alignment, and issue resolution. Oversee testing, prioritize defects, and manage customer negotiations to ensure seamless deployment, schedule consensus, and high-quality outcomes. This role requires strong software technical understanding, senior-level delivery and project management skills, excellent interpersonal skills, strong process understanding, and the ability to clearly present release status to stakeholders. Experience in complex customer-facing software delivery environments is required.

Duties and Responsibilities:

· Coordinate software release processes, including planning, scheduling, and deployment, with a strong focus on quality and timeliness

· Collaborate with cross-functional teams such as Engineering, Product Management, and Program Management to ensure effective communication and alignment throughout the release lifecycle, including SW and System Engineering, integration, and customer-facing teams. Provide leadership and influence across cross-functional team members so they remain focused, put effort into improving execution, remove blockers, and meet agreed deadlines

· Oversee defect prioritization and resolution efforts, negotiating scope and schedule to maintain high standards of quality.

· Manage release risks by identifying potential blockers, developing contingency plans, and ensuring proactive issue resolution. Provide recovery plans when release dates or quality are at risk

· Document and communicate release plans, progress, and outcomes to stakeholders, including senior leadership and customers. Prepare clear release status updates, dashboards, decision points, risks, dependencies, and customer/program impact for stakeholders.

· Participate actively in development and testing phases, providing insights and oversight to maintain release integrity

· Support customer meetings when necessary, supporting complex deployments with established release strategies and clear status communication for customer-facing software deliveries.

· Contribute to stakeholder communication, ensuring alignment and consensus on release timelines and outcomes

· Own release schedule, milestones, dependencies, risks, blockers, and action items.

· Lead release readiness reviews and delivery checkpoints.

· Maintain Jira and MS Project views to support release planning, schedule tracking, issue follow-up, and management reporting

Requirements

· Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience

· 6+ years of experience in software release management, technical project management, software delivery, or software program management

· Experience in complex customer-facing software delivery environments, preferably within aviation, aerospace, IFE, embedded systems, or other integrated technology platforms

· Strong software technical understanding, including software development lifecycle, release lifecycle, software features, defects, builds, integration issues, validation, deployment readiness, and customer-impacting software issues

· Ability to translate technical software issues into clear schedule, quality, risk, dependency, and customer-impact language

· Experience working closely with software engineering, QA, system engineering, integration, validation, product, program management, and customer-facing teams

· Strong hands-on experience with Jira and MS Project, including release tracking, task ownership, dependencies, blockers, milestones, dashboards, and schedule management

· Skilled in project planning and execution, including ownership of release schedules, milestones, dependencies, risks, blockers, action items, and recovery plans

· Strong understanding of risk management, mitigation planning, governance frameworks, and release decision-making

· Experience supporting project management process improvements, and organizational transformation

· Knowledge of portfolio and program management concepts

· Strong presentation, leadership, and stakeholder communication skills, with the ability to present clear release status to leadership, customers, and cross-functional teams

· Ability to influence cross-functional team members without direct authority, drive accountability, and motivate teams to meet commitments and deadlines

· Strong verbal communication skills

· Detail-oriented, highly organized, and able to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment

· Team-oriented work style with strong collaboration, negotiation, and problem-solving skills

Benefits

The starting pay range for this position is $112,000 - 127,000 per year however, the base pay offered may vary depending on the level of the position, skills, experience, job-related knowledge, and location.

In addition to a comprehensive package of health benefits that include company contributions, RAVE Aerospace offers a variety of additional benefits and perks to enhance your work-life balance experience including but not limited to:

• A home allowance to elevate your home workspace
• Discretionary bonus program
• Future financial security with a 401(k) program with a company match
• Paid time off covering vacations, personal time off, and sick days, capped off by an exciting year-end holiday shutdown
• Embraced flexibility with our alternative work schedule (9/80) to navigate your workweeks with every other Friday off