Release Analyst

Release Analyst

JOB-10045931

Anticipated Start Date

March 16, 2026

Location

Taylor, TX

Type of Employment

Contract to Hire

Employer Info

Our client is a membership-based, nonprofit corporation dedicated to ensuring the reliability of the electric grid in Texas. As the independent system operator for the region, they seek skilled professionals to support their critical mission — ensuring a reliable electric grid, efficient markets, open access, and retail choice. With a diverse organization, employees bring a wide range of experience and expertise to excel in the current energy landscape while preparing for the future.

Job Summary

The Release Analyst provides support, oversight, administration, and facilitation of IT infrastructure and application changes within a 24/7 operations environment. This role ensures audit tracking, system reliability, availability, functionality, integrity, and risk mitigation by coordinating, communicating, and documenting changes to non-development environments.

Job Description

• Organize and lead effective release planning meetings, ensuring cross-functional alignment across application, infrastructure, and cloud teams.
• Define and maintain a structured release calendar for applications and infrastructure, including OS patching, cloud deployments, middleware upgrades, and security updates.
• Establish a consistent and predictable release cadence across IT applications, cloud platforms, and infrastructure components.
• Manage end-to-end infrastructure and application release cycles across on-premises and cloud environments to minimize operational disruptions.
• Ensure adherence to enterprise IT policies and security standards during release execution.
• Track release deliverables, security compliance checks, and functional/security test approvals to ensure production readiness.
• Monitor infrastructure changes including system upgrades, network modifications, storage enhancements, and patching cycles.
• Provide oversight for OS patching (Windows and Linux), including major and minor updates, along with firmware updates for storage, network configuration items (CIs), and enterprise systems.
• Oversee cloud infrastructure deployments (Azure), ensuring proper configuration and validation.
• Collaborate with DevOps and IT System Reliability teams to integrate automated release pipelines, CI/CD best practices, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) methodologies.
• Utilize automation tools such as Ansible and Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and release management.
• Ensure infrastructure releases comply with internal security policies and applicable regulatory requirements (including CIP standards where applicable).
• Track and report key release performance metrics such as patch deployment success rates, release cycle efficiency, system downtime, and rollback trends.
• Facilitate root cause analysis (RCA) and post-mortem reviews for failed or delayed releases and drive continuous process improvements.
• Act as a liaison between development, operations, cloud, and security teams to optimize release management processes.
• Support the Change Advisory Board (CAB) by ensuring infrastructure changes are properly assessed, documented, and communicated.
• Manage cross-functional dependencies and maintain accurate release documentation.
• Utilize Jira and/or ServiceNow to manage release workflows, change approvals, and infrastructure deployment tracking.
• Support ITSM processes including Change, Release, Incident, and Problem Management.

Job Skills Required

• Minimum 3 years of experience in IT Change & Release Management, specifically supporting infrastructure releases (OS patching, security updates, cloud deployments, system upgrades).
• Minimum 5 years of progressively responsible experience in system integration, infrastructure release management, or IT operations.
• Strong knowledge of ITIL best practices for Change, Release, Incident, and Problem Management.
• ITIL v4 Certification (highly preferred).
  
• Azure cloud certification. (preferred)
  
• Certified OpenShift Administrator or similar infrastructure-related certification.(preferred)
  
• Experience with ServiceNow for managing release and infrastructure deployment workflows.(preferred)
  
• Hands-on experience with server patching, database updates, cloud infrastructure rollouts, and network changes.(preferred)
  
• Working knowledge of automation tools such as Ansible and Terraform.(preferred)
  
• Experience with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure release automation.(preferred)
  
• Familiarity with SQL, scripting languages (Python, Shell, PowerShell), and data analysis tools is a plus.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field required
• 6+ years of applicable experience in lieu of a degree.

Pay Rate

• $62 - $71 per hour (Compensation will be offered within this posted range based on experience, skills, and market factors)

HirePower Personnel, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, protected veteran status, or other characteristics protected by law.