Release Manager

Primary functions require sufficient physical ability and mobility to work in an office setting; to stand or sit for prolonged periods of time; to occasionally stoop, bend, kneel, crouch, reach, and twist; to lift, carry, push, and/or pull light to moderate amounts of weight; to operate office equipment requiring repetitive hand movement and fine coordination including use of a keyboard; and to verbally communicate to exchange information. Position Summary: The Release Manager is responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing enterprise software releases across Product, Engineering, QA, Business, Operations, and other impacted stakeholders.

Position Summary: The Release Manager is responsible for planning, coordinating, and executing enterprise software releases across Product, Engineering, QA, Business, Operations, and other impacted stakeholders. This role ensures releases are predictable, well-coordinated, and communicated effectively while improving delivery transparency, business readiness, and operational adoption.The Release Manager owns the release lifecycle from planning through post-production validation, ensuring technical delivery and business readiness activities are aligned before deployment. Location: Remote The Team: At Kind Lending, our family of diverse and talented Kind Ambassadors are the driving force behind our new approach to the mortgage experience. They're the heart and soul of the organization and our "People Before Profits" mentality shines through in every department. Kind Lending is growing and is looking for top mortgage professionals who value opportunity, lasting business partnerships, and who live out our KIND mindset. Kind Lending is determined to provide the best service in the industry while also providing homebuyers a great selection of products to enhance their buying experience. Backed by our trusted leadership team, Kind Lending's friendly and professional model puts the fun in funding. Pay Disclosure: The starting base $125,000 - $150,000 range for this position is Compensation & Work Environment. The actual base is dependent on many factors such as: work experience, business needs, market demands, and other compensation components. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. Responsibilities: Release Planning.Own and maintain the enterprise release calendar.Partner with Product, Engineering, QA, Business, and Operations teams to coordinate release schedules.Establish release milestones, readiness checkpoints, and critical path activities.Identify dependencies, risks, resource constraints, and delivery impacts.Ensure release scope, timing, and impacts are clearly understood by stakeholders.Release Readiness & Execution.Coordinate release readiness activities across Product, Engineering, QA, Business, and Operations teams.Facilitate release planning sessions and go/no-go readiness meetings.Track progress against committed delivery timelines.Ensure development, testing, UAT, and production readiness criteria are met.Coordinate production deployment activities and post-release validation.Ensure release issues, risks, and blockers are identified and actively managed.Business Readiness & Adoption.Partner with Business teams to assess operational impacts of upcoming releases.Ensure business stakeholders are prepared for process, workflow, or system changes.Coordinate UAT planning, execution, completion, and business signoff.Ensure training needs are identified and completed prior to release when required.Coordinate business communications, release notes, and adoption activities.Confirm impacted teams understand changes, timing, and expected outcomes.Stakeholder Communication.Provide clear release status updates across technical and business stakeholders.Communicate release scope, timing, risks, dependencies, and readiness status.Maintain transparency into delivery commitments and potential impacts.Coordinate executive communication for high-impact releases.Delivery Governance.Maintain release processes, checklists, standards, and operating procedures.Improve visibility into delivery commitments and release performance.Partner with teams to ensure Jira and reporting accurately reflect delivery status.Track post-release validation, production outcomes, and lessons learned.Drive continuous improvement of the release management process. Qualifications: Excellent verbal and written communication skills.Requires team player mentality, willingness to work in a fast-paced environment while exhibiting our Kind Culture.Experience coordinating enterprise software releases across multiple teams.Strong understanding of Agile delivery practices and software development lifecycle.Experience working across Product, Engineering, QA, Business, and Operations teams.Strong communication, organizational, and stakeholder management skills.Ability to manage multiple priorities, dependencies, and competing timelines.Experience driving structured readiness processes and cross-functional alignment. Preferred Experience Experience in mortgage, financial services, or other regulated environments.Experience with Jira, Agile delivery tools, and release governance.Experience managing complex cross-functional technology initiatives.Experience coordinating UAT, business readiness, training, and operational adoption activities. Work Authorization: Must be able to verify identity and employment eligibility to work in the U.S. without a visa sponsorship. Other Duties: This job profile is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of job duties and responsibilities, as one may perform additional related duties as assigned to meet the needs of the organization. Physical Demands: The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Primary functions require sufficient physical ability and mobility to work in an office setting; to stand or sit for prolonged periods of time; to occasionally stoop, bend, kneel, crouch, reach, and twist; to lift, carry, push, and/or pull light to moderate amounts of weight; to operate office equipment requiring repetitive hand movement and fine coordination including use of a keyboard; and to verbally communicate to exchange information. VISION: See in the normal visual range with or without correction. HEARING: Hear in the normal audio range with or without correction. Kind Lending is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to workforce diversity. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, religion, creed, color, orientation, gender, age, national origin, veteran status, disability status, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. ***For your security, Kind Lending will only contact you from email addresses ending in kindlending.com. Emails from any other domain should be treated as suspicious and may be phishing attempts. #LI-Remote