Senior Manager, IT Change Release Management

The Hong Kong Jockey Club

Founded in 1884, The Hong Kong Jockey Club (“the Club”) is a world-class racing club that acts continuously for the betterment of our society. The Club has a unique integrated business model, comprising racing and racecourse entertainment, a membership club, responsible sports wagering and lottery, and charities and community contribution. Through this model, the Club generates economic and social value for the community and supports the HKSAR Government in combatting illegal gambling.

Who are we?

We are the IT Division of HKJC, a vibrant community of over 1,500 dedicated professionals working collaboratively across Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

Our team is a diverse mix of individuals from various backgrounds, from all across the world. We embrace our humanity, recognizing that each of us brings unique strengths and perspectives. This diversity not only enriches our work environment but also drives our innovation and creativity as we strive to achieve our collective goals.

What do we do?

We design, build, and operate the technology that powers the Club. Our primary focus is on delivering the service that supports our hospitality, racing and wagering operations, to ensure that our customers and members enjoy exceptional experiences.

We also deliver the changes necessary to drive business growth through new products and services. And, we are committed to safeguarding the Club by protecting it from external threats, providing a secure and resilient technological environment.

The Department

The IT Change Department is crucial for ensuring the successful delivery of all IT change initiatives, whether using agile or waterfall methodologies. It is supported by a robust IT Change Management Office (CMO), which oversees the entire process to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. Key responsibilities of the IT change department:

• Change Initiative Delivery
• Change Management Office
• Quality Assurance
• Release Management
• Portfolio Management
• PDLC Governance

The Job

• Lead the end-to-end planning, scoping, scheduling, and coordination of software releases across multiple value streams, tribes, projects and platforms, managing and communicating release plans, dependencies, risks, and conflicts across multiple value streams, projects and programmes
• Lead the identification of release dependency management by identifying and addressing interdependencies between value streams, tribes, projects, programmes and business areas to ensure technical, functional, and business readiness before deployment
• Conduct release risk management by proactively mitigating potential issues, aligning stakeholders on contingency plans, and establishing rollback strategies for IT Change releases
• Create and maintain alignment to the aggregated release deployment schedule, and coordinate with development teams, QA, IT operations, and business stakeholders to ensure successful releases, enhancing cross-team collaboration and communication to optimise alignment between development, operations, and business teams
• Optimise the efficiency and effectiveness of release packages, maintaining risk and quality
• Responsible for maintaining stability and efficiency across release deployment activities through post-deployment verification, sign off and hand over, including coordination of deployment
• Establish, maintain and enhance release management processes and governance to support IT Change and lead the controlled transition of IT Change releases from traditional “Big Bang” release cycles to more agile release patterns
• Drive the deployment of release automation tools and practices to improve efficiency
• This role will work closely with IT Operations and Service Excellence team members to ensure releases meet production acceptance criteria and non-functional reliability requirements are included in early change planning

About You

• University degree in Computer Science, engineering or related discipline
• ITIL certification, agile release methodologies are required,  COBIT certification is highly preferable
• 10+ years of experience in information systems with an experienced IT Release manager, 5+ years of IT release management leadership or similar experience
• Experience with continuous release automation and deployment tools
• Experience of working with Release management tools (JIRA, BMC Helix, Jenkins, ServiceNow, or similar), Version control systems (Git) and configuration management tools
• Strong knowledge of CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitLab, or similar)

Apply Now!

We offer competitive salary and benefits packages, a dynamic working environment and development opportunities.

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Equal Opportunity and Inclusive Hiring

We are an equal opportunity employer and strive to create an inclusive workplace for all. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are welcomed to apply. If you have any special needs or require accommodations during the interview process, please e-mail us via careers@hkjc.org.hk. Personal data provided by job applicants will be used strictly in accordance with the Club's notice to employees and job applicants relating to the Personal Data (Privacy) Ordinance. A copy of which will be provided immediately upon request.