Release Train Engineer at Markel Corp in Richmond, VA

Job Summary:

The Release Train Engineer is accountable for the overall coordination, execution and delivery of value through the Program while ensuring alignment with company strategy, commitments and goals. They are responsible for providing knowledge and expertise around lean agile principles and practices while coaching key roles in the organization to be self-sufficient in day to day operations. They will empower team members to try new approaches and techniques and will partner closely with Portfolio Leads, Business Owners, Product Management, Product Owners, other Release Train Engineers and Scrum Masters to establish lean agile practices that include but are not limited to: Scrum, Kanban service delivery management, applying systems thinking in understanding the value streams, program increment planning and execution as well as insight into Continuous Integration/Continuous Development, DevOps and automation. Works closely with the Agile Transformation team, PMO and Communities of Practice (CoPs) to foster a lean agile mindset.Responsibilities:

• Strategy / Portfolio
• Engage with Business / Service owners in Strategic Planning
• Supports Product Management in Program Increment readiness and timely refinement using the Program Kanban
• Roll up team’s work to program level visibility
• Establishes the annual calendars for iteration and program increments
• Accountable for Quality and deliverables of the Program Increments
• Aggregate & Manage team objectives into Program Increment objectives
• Ensure that the Program has high visibility and understanding of the critical data for the release train – dependencies, issues and risks, Inspect & Adapt improvement backlogs, train-level metrics, etc. and communicates appropriately.
• Facilitates in Program execution and Program Increments feature completion tracking
• Resolve train level impediments and escalate to Program Team or equivalent
• Cross team delivery:
• Mastery of complex facilitation and dependency management techniques (cross team, cross department)
• Drive cross team, ART and departmental impediments, planning, collaboration, and coordination
• Drive delivery and continuous improvement by utilizing feedback and metrics (quality, delivery rate, etc) to identify areas of opportunity
• Implement key process improvements to ensure optimal productivity across the agile release train
• Understand domain architecture and upstream/downstream dependencies
• Stay current on domain architecture targets to support the program in risk management
• Help establish governance structure where decision-making is weighted toward empowered teams
• Servant Leadership
• Provide daily leadership and coaching to scrum masters, team members to apply scaled agile practices to achieve business success.
• Encourage Scrum/Kanban team and train-level quality practices to apply XP Practices for Achieving High Quality Code – including Agile architecture, and continuous integration.
• Keeps track of external dependencies and manage these dependencies while planning
• Drives ART wide ceremonies on time e.g. System demo, Inspect Adapt workshops
• Reports ART status to relevant stakeholders
• Drives continuous improvements & risk management

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field
• Current Agile certification
• Minimum 5 years relevant IT experience
• 5 years of experience in an Agile environment using Scaled Agile (SAFe) concepts and experience leading a large Agile Release Train.
• Managing dependencies across multiple teams in or outside the Agile Release Train (ART)
• High-level understanding of software architecture and software delivery lifecycle to provide context of teams work to management as needed
• Great skills and knowledge with facilitation, coaching, mentoring, conflict resolution, continual improvement and empowerment
• Strong facilitation of communication skills
• Knowledge/working experience with Jira and Confluence.