Release Train Engineer

At ERCOT, our diverse and dynamic work environment provides a platform on which employees can work together to build the future of the Texas power grid and wholesale market utilizing the latest technologies and resources.  We encourage you to join our talented, dedicated workforce to develop world-class solutions for today and tomorrow’s energy challenges while learning new skills and growing your career. ERCOT is committed to fostering inclusion at all levels of our company. It is the cornerstone of our corporate values of accountability, leadership, innovation, trust, and expertise. We know that individuals with a wide variety of talents, ideas, and experiences propel the innovation that drives our success. An inclusive and diverse workforce strengthens us and allows for a collaborative environment to solve the challenges that face our industry today and in the future. JOB SUMMARY Facilitate product release planning and governs the end-to-end release lifecycle across ERCOT applications, AI, and data platform portfolio. Coordinates release planning sessions, backlog management, and product roadmap facilitation across Agile sprint, waterfall, and hybrid delivery teams. Owns the production release calendar, NERC CIP change governance, ServiceNow change management workflows, and program-level delivery metrics reporting. Serves as the connective tissue between delivery teams, business stakeholders, and governance bodies — ensuring every release is planned, approved, measured, and continuously improved. JOB DUTIES Applies knowledge of release planning, change management, and delivery governance principles to facilitate structured, compliant, and predictable software releases across ERCOT's application and data platform portfolio. Follows established release management processes and procedures to coordinate deployment activities across Agile sprint, waterfall, and hybrid delivery teams; ensures cross-functional alignment on release scope, schedule, and readiness. Creates, reviews, and manages IT change records in ServiceNow in accordance with ERCOT change management standards; coordinates Change Advisory Board activities and ensures all releases meet NERC CIP change governance requirements prior to production promotion. Maintains the production release calendar and facilitates release planning meetings, backlog grooming sessions, and deployment readiness reviews to ensure consistent, predictable release cadence across all delivery tracks. Contributes to the generation and distribution of release metrics, status reports, and delivery dashboards supporting program-level visibility and continuous improvement of the release management function. ADDITIONAL JOB DUTIES — BY LEVEL Level 2 — Release Train Engineer Release Planning Facilitation — Facilitate product release planning sessions across Agile sprint teams, waterfall project tracks, and hybrid delivery programs; coordinate cross-team capacity, feature scoping, dependency mapping, and risk identification for each planning cycle. Product Roadmap Facilitation — Facilitate product roadmap planning sessions with Product Managers, architects, and business stakeholders; maintain roadmap visibility in Jira; communicate how planned features and releases map to organizational priorities and delivery capacity. Waterfall Project Release Planning — Own release planning for waterfall project tracks: milestone definition, phase gate sequencing, Gantt-style schedule development, resource coordination, and formal release approval planning. Agile Sprint & Iteration Release Planning — Facilitate sprint and iteration release planning for Agile teams; coordinate sprint-to-release promotion sequencing, release branch readiness, and Definition of Done alignment across development, QA, and release engineering. Backlog Management & Grooming Facilitation — Facilitate product and program backlog grooming and refinement sessions; ensure epics, features, and stories are sufficiently defined, estimated, dependency-mapped, and ready for sprint or project execution. ServiceNow Change Record Management — Create, review, and manage change records in ServiceNow; ensure change classification, approval routing, and documentation meet ITSM governance and NERC CIP audit standards. Release Calendar Coordination — Maintain the production release calendar; coordinate deployment windows across delivery teams, infrastructure, and change management; communicate release schedule and risk to all stakeholders. Release Metrics & DORA Data Collection — Capture and report release frequency, change volume by type, change success rates, PI predictability, and sprint velocity; contribute to DORA and ITC metric dashboards in Power BI. CAB Meeting Facilitation — Facilitate Change Advisory Board meetings; prepare and distribute meeting agendas, capture decisions and action items, and ensure CAB notes are documented and distributed to stakeholders. Deployment Readiness Tracking — Track release deliverables, security compliance checks, and functional test approvals; confirm production readiness criteria are met before each deployment window. Stakeholder Communication — Coordinate release communication across development, QA, operations, and business teams; ensure all stakeholders have timely, accurate information on release scope, schedule, and risk. Documentation & Process Standards — Update and maintain release management process documentation, runbooks, and deployment checklists following applicable ERCOT standards. Sr. Release Train Engineer (All Level 2 duties plus:) Hybrid Delivery Coordination — Coordinate release planning and deployment sequencing across teams operating under Agile, waterfall, and hybrid delivery methodologies; synchronize cross-team releases when shared dependencies exist. Program-Level Release Governance — Enforce release readiness criteria before each deployment window; validate test completion evidence, environment stability, stak