Release Train Engineer
Seattle, WA

Job Description

Come work at a place where innovation and teamwork come together to support the most exciting missions in the world!

Position Summary:

As the Release Train Engineer (RTE), you provide guidance to the release train. Although the ART (Agile Release Train) and the teams that are part of the train are predominately self-managing and self-organizing, the RTE helps teams adapt to the environment.

The RTE facilitates ART processes and execution. You identify impediments so as to speed resolution, manage risk, help ensure value delivery, and help drive relentless improvement. You might also participate in the Lean-Agile transformation process, coaching leaders, teams, and Scrum Masters in the new processes and mindsets. You help configure SAFe to the organization's needs, standardizing and documenting practices.

Much of the RTE role is aiding intergroup communication and helping resolve intergroup dependencies. In a perfect world, all teams would have an understanding of what was going on in other teams that they could impact or that could impact them, however, often the environment makes that impossible. As RTE, you help keep information flowing so that the teams can focus on delivery.

Primary Responsibilities:

* Assist in tracking the ART. (In many organizations, the RTE does the tracking and reporting.)
* Organize, run and facilitate the release planning meeting. (The release planning meeting (BRP) is a two-day meeting that includes all of the people involved with the ART.)
* Chair the scrum of scrums (SoS). As a leader, and the scrum master of scrum masters, the RTE is perfectly positioned to ensure that teams interact and share cross-team issues and risks during the SoS.
* Resolve and/or escalate impediments. Scrum masters facilitate the resolution of impediments within their span of influence. Once an impediment is outside a scrum master's span of influence, the RTE steps in to remove the impediment or escalate the issue to someone who can remove the impediment.
* Facilitate process improvement at the ART level. While teams pursue improvements based on retrospectives, the RTE ensures that the overall processes are continually being refined. (An example of one of the process-improvement events that the RTE leads is the retrospective that ends the release planning meeting.)
* Monitor progress to plan and design a recovery strategy if the project deviates from baseline plan.
* Craft and publish effective status reports that can serve a variety of audiences, from project team member to executive.
* Collaborate with peers, managers, and team members across the organization to solve problems, develop plans, and coordinate work.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

* Able to communicate effectively across written, spoken, and presentation formats to audiences from engineer to executive.
* Able to develop a project schedule using work-breakdown techniques that lead to a defined critical path.
* Able to design and document a project charter that includes scope, schedule, budget, and risk management plan.
* Able to apply critical thinking techniques to analyze problems, develop solutions, build resource forecasts, and handle risk.
* Able to use either Waterfall or Agile methods to manage projects that may include both software and hardware.
* Able to lead the gathering of product requirements and project scope across a multi-function team.
* Can lead through influence to drive both the team and program forward.
* Able to manage and facilitate team meetings and initiatives to effectively develop plans and achieve goals.
* Able to demonstrate servant leadership.
* Strong working knowledge of technology companies or domains, and the interplay between Marketing, Product Development, Manufacturing, Customer Support, Sales, and Professional Services.
* Demonstrate expertise in the use of standard tools for project and portfolio management, such as Jira and Jira Align, MS Project, or MS Project Server.

Qualifications

* Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, technology project management, or related field preferred.
* Minimum 8+ years' experience (or 6+ years with master's degree) managing projects at technology-based companies or technical domains.
* Experience leading multiple (ART) Agile Release Trains
* Prefer Certified Scrum Master (CSM), or Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) experience/certificate?, experience leading or implementing SAFe, or equivalent certification.
* Experience with a geo-dispersed project team.
* Experience working in a concurrent software development environment as part of a complex build-and-merge management process.
* Technology product development experience is helpful.

F5 Networks, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer and we embrace diversity

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination. Reasonable accommodation is available for qualified individuals with disabilities, upon request.