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Senior Release Manager (Contract)

DrivemodeOperations & Admin
Salary
$75–$100/hr
Hiring from
United States
Work type
Hybrid
Posted
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About Drivemode:

Drivemode is a California-based division of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. We are a small, passionate team of software product innovators helping Honda Automotive be competitive in the Hybrid and Electric Vehicle market. We build application experiences for mobile devices. Are you passionate about creating next-generation delightful digital experiences for automotive? Maybe you have worked at some notable automotive companies in this capacity? Would you like to work on new products and product categories at Honda and help Honda invent the future of automotive? Then we would like to hear from you!

Why Drivemode:
Join Drivemode for an exciting startup environment and a vibrant culture that combines impactful work, competitive compensation, and excellent benefits. By becoming a part of our team, you'll contribute to a crucial mission that revolutionizes the way people engage with vehicles, addressing both business needs and the world's environmental challenges. This presents an exceptional opportunity to be at the forefront of innovation and drive Honda's success in the Automotive market.

About This Role:

Drivemode, a Honda company, is looking for a highly technical Senior Release & Service Operations Manager to own and improve the end-to-end software release lifecycle for our connected vehicle and mobile platforms.

This role sits at the intersection of Engineering, Product, Quality Assurance, and Service Operations, ensuring that software releases are predictable, technically sound, fully validated, and operationally ready.

We're looking for someone who goes beyond traditional release coordination. The ideal candidate understands software architecture, development workflows, Git branching strategies, CI/CD pipelines, integration dependencies, and production operations.

You will maintain a comprehensive view of what's planned, what's being developed, what's ready for QA, and what is ultimately included in each release. You should be comfortable working directly with engineers to investigate release risks, validate branch and build readiness, and identify integration gaps before they become production issues.

This role requires both strong technical judgment and exceptional communication skills, including the ability to coordinate across distributed engineering teams and stakeholders in the United States and Japan.

Responsibilities:

1. End-to-End Release Management

  • Own the release lifecycle from planning and scope definition through development, QA, deployment, and post-release validation.

  • Maintain visibility into upcoming features, bug fixes, technical dependencies, and release commitments.

  • Establish clear release schedules, milestones, readiness criteria, and cutoffs.

    • 2. Technical Release Engineering & Integration

  • Work closely with Engineering to understand Git branching strategies, merge status, cherry-picks, backports, release branches, and build dependencies.

  • Independently verify which changes are included in each release and identify missing or incorrectly targeted changes.

  • Understand CI/CD workflows, build pipelines, versioning, deployment processes, and integration dependencies.

    • 3. Engineering and QA Alignment

  • Maintain a clear understanding of development progress and upcoming work requiring QA validation.

  • Ensure QA teams have visibility into incoming builds, feature scope, technical changes, and testing dependencies.

  • Coordinate release-related defect triage, retesting, regression testing, and verification of fixes.

    • 4. Service Operations & Production Readiness

  • Establish operational readiness criteria for production releases, including monitoring, support handoffs, rollback procedures, and escalation paths.

  • Partner with Engineering and Support to coordinate production incidents, service disruptions, and urgent hotfixes.

  • Facilitate incident communication, technical triage, root cause analysis, and corrective action tracking.

    • 5. Stakeholder Management & Communication

  • Serve as a central point of coordination for release status, technical readiness, risks, and deployment decisions.

  • Communicate effectively with Engineering leadership, Product, QA, Support, and Honda stakeholders.

  • Translate complex technical issues into clear business impact, risks, decisions, and action plans.

    • 6. Automation & Continuous Improvement

  • Develop or improve internal tools, scripts, and dashboards to increase release visibility and reduce manual coordination.

  • Leverage Jira, GitHub, CI/CD platforms, APIs, and test management systems to improve release traceability.

  • Automate repetitive release checks, reporting, and operational workflows where practical.

    • What We Are Looking For:

  • 7+ years of experience in Technical Release Management, Release Engineering, DevOps, Software Engineering, Technical Program Management, or a closely related technical delivery role.
  • Strong understanding of the software development lifecycle, from requirements and development through testing, deployment, and production operations.
  • Hands-on working knowledge of Git, including branching, merges, cherry-picks, backports, and release management strategies.
  • Experience working with CI/CD pipelines and modern build/deployment workflows.
  • Ability to understand backend architectures, REST APIs, integrations, and dependencies across distributed systems.
  • Experience coordinating releases across multiple engineering teams and complex software environments.
  • Working knowledge of production incident management, change management, troubleshooting, and service operations.
  • Ability to read code, interpret logs, investigate technical issues, and collaborate effectively with software engineers.
  • Experience with Jira, GitHub, and modern development and testing tools.
  • Strong communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills.
  • Demonstrated ability to operate independently, identify risks, drive decisions, and maintain clarity in complex environments.

    • Nice to Have:

  • Hands-on scripting or automation experience using Python, Bash, JavaScript, or similar languages.

  • Experience with mobile application releases across iOS and Android.

  • Experience with backend services, cloud platforms, microservices, or connected-device architectures.

  • Familiarity with automotive software, connected vehicles, telematics, or hardware/software integrations.

  • Experience with TestRail, automated testing, or release traceability tooling.

  • Experience with ITIL or ITSM practices, including incident, problem, and change management.

  • Experience working with international teams, particularly Japan-based stakeholders

  • Japanese language proficiency (business-level or conversational) is a plus, particularly for collaboration with Honda stakeholders in Japan.

  • Experience working with Japanese organizations or navigating cross-cultural communication in US–Japan engineering environments is highly desirable.

    • EEOC Statement
    Drivemode is proud of a very diverse team with employees coming from 5 continents/20 countries as of today. Diversity in our workplace has played an important part in our success; we recognize each employee’s unique background, knowledge, experiences, ideas, and viewpoints which are all critical in developing a product that has the greatest impacts on drivers all over the world.
    Drivemode provides equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, religion, color, age, gender, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other characteristics that make you unique.

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