Director, Release Management & Delivery Governance with CalSAWS

Job Description:

Director, Release Management & Delivery Governance with CalSAWS

Description

Position Description

APPLY HERE : Careers - The home of CalSAWS

Recruitment Announcement:

Are you an experienced enterprise delivery leader who thrives in complex, multi-vendor environments? Do you have the discipline and executive presence to enforce readiness, govern release standards, and ensure safe, predictable deployments across large-scale public systems? Are you ready to help CalSAWS and BenefitsCal ship critical technology safely and transparently to all 58 California counties?

If so, CalSAWS invites you to apply today to join our team as the next Director, Release Management & Delivery Governance!

Position Information

The Director, Release Management & Delivery Governanceowns enterprise-wide release management and delivery governance to ensure CalSAWS and BenefitsCal ship safely, predictably, and transparently. This role establishes and enforces consistent readiness gates, evidence standards, deployment discipline, and post-release learning across multiple projects and vendors.

This position owns the downstream release efforts including: release calendar management, packaging of deliverables across projects, readiness gating, go/no-go discipline, cutover orchestration, stabilization planning, and release metrics.

Releases serve as deployment vehicles that include deliverables from multiple projects. The Director partners closely with the Project Delivery Office (PDO) to ensure project-to-release traceability, dependency visibility, and decision transparency.

Key areas of responsibility include:

• Owning the enterprise release calendar, deployment windows, freeze periods, and release communications standards
• Defining and enforcing readiness gates, including:
  • Entry and exit criteria
  • System testing completion
  • County validation/UAT sign-off
  • Evidence packages and defect thresholds
  • Rollback readiness and operational runbooks
  • Training and communications readiness
• Packaging release scope across multiple projects and ensuring traceability to accountable project owners and intended outcomes
• Leading go/no-go governance processes and cutover orchestration
• Ensuring stabilization windows are planned, staffed, and supported
• Establishing and governing an emergency change path with clear criteria and required evidence
• Driving release quality and stability metrics (e.g., success rate, defect leakage, emergency fixes, change failure rate)
• Leading post-implementation reviews (PIRs) and continuous improvement efforts with measurable corrective actions
• Partnering with CIO delivery leaders to ensure vendor accountability for readiness artifacts, quality standards, and corrective actions
• Ensuring consistent release governance standards across CalSAWS and BenefitsCal, even where release trains or cadences differ

The Ideal Candidate Will:

• Bring senior leadership experience in release management, service delivery governance, or large-scale enterprise software development life cycle (SDLC) governance
• Demonstrate the ability to implement and enforce readiness gates and go/no-go discipline across multiple vendors and teams
• Have strong metrics orientation with experience driving quality, stability, and change success improvements
• Excel at executive communication, escalation management, and evidence-based decision making
• Be able to hold firm on governance standards while maintaining trust and forward momentum
• Possess a general understanding of California’s welfare landscape and the county-administered service delivery model
• Be motivated by delivering predictable, transparent, and high-quality releases that support public service continuity

All positions may be subject to some short-term travel in order to conduct project business with the State and counties. The CalSAWS project office is currently located in Gold River, California.

Success Measures - First 90 Days

• Publish/confirm enterprise release calendar and standard readiness gate framework; socialize with vendors and internal teams (CalSAWS + BenefitsCal).
• Implement project-to-release traceability approach with PDO (minimum viable traceability) and pilot on the next two release cycles.
• Define go/no-go package template, cutover/stabilization checklist, and emergency change criteria; run at least one release using the standardized evidence set.
• Stand up the release metrics dashboard and monthly PIR/continuous improvement cadence, with clear ownership for corrective actions.
• Formalize the BenefitsCal interface: evidence expectations, cutover responsibilities, and escalation path that preserves BenefitsCal roadmap authority while enforcing enterprise gates.

Success measures - First 12 Months

• Enterprise release governance is consistently applied across CalSAWS and BenefitsCal, with clear gates and evidence standards understood by teams and vendors.
• Improved release readiness and stability: fewer late-stage surprises, fewer emergency fixes, and increased first-pass release success rate.
• Clear distinction is adopted organization-wide: releases are not treated as ‘projects’; release scope is traceable back to projects/outcomes via PDO-managed traceability.
• A release metrics dashboard and PIR (post-implementation review) cadence are established; trends drive measurable corrective actions with owners and due dates.
• Stakeholders experience predictable timelines and transparent tradeoffs when scope/capacity conflicts occur, supported by evidence-based governance.

Examples of Duties

Link to full job description: LINK

Typical Qualifications

TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE:

• A bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university or experience.
• Seven (7) years of progressively responsible, full-time, paid experience in a centralized Information Technology organization, performing information systems analysis and design, application development.
• Two (2) years of management or supervisorial experience.

Supplemental Information

BENEFITS and SALARY INFORMATION:

SALARY: $11,795.69 - $16,937.04 monthly depending on experience.

For information on benefits through RGS employment - - https://rgsjpa.org/rgs-employees-assigned-to-calsaws/

EMPLOYMENT: For candidates employed with a county in California who are not able to support a staff member on the CalSAWS project, the CalSAWS Consortium contracts with Regional Government Services (RGS) to provide staff for the consortium. Hires from this recruitment and selection process are expected to work for the CalSAWS Consortium through the contract with Regional Government Services (RGS), which provides staff for the consortium.

APPLICATION PROCESS AND SELECTION PROCEDURE:

Ready to take the next step? Email your resume and completed Request for Consideration form to [email protected] to join CalSAWS as a Director, Release Management & Delivery Governance and be part of shaping the future of statewide technology and service delivery!

Application Deadline - April 3, 2026

To apply email [email protected] and attach your resume.

All submissions will be reviewed by CalSAWS, with interviews scheduled for the most qualified candidates.

CalSAWS is an Equal Opportunity Employer

Closing Date/Time: 4/3/2026 11:59 PM Pacific

Salary:

$141,548.28 - $203,244.48 Annually