Director, Service and Release Management

The Director of Service and Release Management at Cubic Transportation Systems is a senior leadership role responsible for operational execution, delivery governance, and release integrity of live services across the global portfolio. The role involves leading a multidisciplinary team, ensuring customer satisfaction, and driving process maturity.

Location: United States

Salary: $140,000.00 - $200,000.00 + benefits

Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and hold accountable a team of SDMOs, Project Managers, and Release Managers.
• Build a high-performing team culture grounded in operational discipline, customer accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Define career development paths and capability-building plans for each function.
• Set performance expectations, escalation standards, and ways of working.
• Ensure appropriate span of control and program coverage.
• Serve as the senior operational leader bridging delivery execution with customer and customer-facing teams.
• Work closely with regional Heads of Customer Success to ensure operational performance aligns with regional commitments.
• Maintain strong relationships with SDMs and Associate GMs.
• Represent the function in customer forums and executive briefings.
• Own the maturity roadmap for Service Delivery, Project Management, and Release Management.
• Establish and enforce standard processes and operating procedures.
• Drive understanding of business and customer value among team members.
• Embed customer health metrics into operations.
• Identify systemic execution gaps and lead root cause resolution.
• Champion adoption of tools and governance mechanisms.
• Serve as the senior escalation point for operational issues.
• Lead high-severity escalations and coordinate resolution.
• Ensure escalation paths are well-defined and followed.
• Partner with regional teams to align service performance with expectations.
• Own the release and change calendar, maintaining a rolling view of planned changes.
• Coordinate change intake and ensure communication of planned changes.
• Partner with Change Management to ensure compliance.
• Define and enforce release governance standards.
• Ensure readiness artifacts and post-launch stabilization.
• Own capacity and impact planning for the team.
• Lead operational impact assessments.
• Coordinate resource planning during peak periods.
• Build and maintain relationships with cross-functional teams.
• Represent the function in leadership forums and governance committees.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in IT, Engineering, Operations, Business, or related discipline.
• 10+ years in service delivery, program management, or technology operations.
• 5+ years in a senior leadership role managing multidisciplinary teams.
• Success in leading maturity uplift, establishing process, governance, and standards.
• Deep knowledge of ITIL practices, especially Incident, Problem, Change, and Release Management.
• Proven ability to lead release governance and operational readiness in high-availability environments.
• Experience coordinating delivery across engineering, infrastructure, operations, and vendors.
• Strong experience working with customers and senior stakeholders.

Benefits

• $140,000.00 - $200,000.00 + benefits.