Release Train Engineer @MMC Tech

THE ROLE & YOUR MISSION

In Product Delivery Engineering, our mission is to revolutionize the collaboration between our Mercer business and IT teams, enabling them to unlock the advantages of rapid and secure software delivery to the market. To achieve this, we are implementing our Agile at Scale Delivery model. As a leader in this role, you will be responsible for overseeing one or more Pods and ensuring the successful delivery of working software to production.

Our scaled Agile Delivery Methodology is revolutionizing our IT teams by organizing them into cohorts of Pods and Squads. In this context, a Squad represents the minimum number of individuals needed to bring product functionality to the market, while a Pod represents the minimum number of Squads required to deliver a complex product or a collection of integrated products to the market.

The primary purpose of Pods is to develop and deliver business-focused Missions through the creation of innovative Products and services:

• Run the software delivery Pod while ensuring there are smooth and efficient processes for getting software through from requirements to working in production;

• Focus on value creation, growth and serving customers;

• Responsible for ensuring your pod is resourced with skill individuals working with our internal and external resource provider teams;

• End-to-end Delivery of a group of software Products;

• Makes outcomes that leads to project success, and work with Product Owner and Business Analysts to help project team prioritize and groom backlog in order to deliver an Alpha early, then continue to deliver value often throughout the project lifecycle to staging and production environments;

• Be a leader for between 5-8 squads: around 30 â 100 people;

• Have an Enterprise mind-set able to foster collaboration, break down silos, identify and work to remove blockers;

• Be an Agile Expert familiar with the processes and practices required for successful and sustainable delivery;

• Have solid understanding of Software Development, Architecture, Test Engineering and Security best practices in an Agile environment;

• Be responsible for the holistic costs of the pod; its resources, infrastructure and licensing;

• Pods support the full lifecycle of a product and we operate on the philosophy that the work comes to the team. You will need to consider tech debt, obsolescence, security and modernization;

• Ensure our Agile at scale governance and ceremonies are in place and effective;

• Working with the wider team to plan complex product releases;

• Ensure our standard metrics are visible and actively being used to drive drawing conclusions;

• Own the Continuous Improvement backlog for the Pod. This is the key mechanism by which we deliver improvements for the following; time to market, efficiency and quality;

• Provide coaching and support to your pod and be responsible for line management of squad leaders;

• In addition to your day to day Pod leadership activities, you will be assigned 1 or more workstream leadership opportunities that will deliver cross-functional benefits to our organization;

• Build and sustain team culture;

YOUR EXPERIENCE & VALUES

• Excellent communication both in English and Romanian;

• Significant organizational Agile transformation experience and be able to demonstrate proven strategies as Mercer has a complex technological landscape and a large portfolio of revenue generating applications. We also have significant security processes and legislative requirements to protect our customers and their data;

• Previous experience of Agile Programme management;

• Expected to have a broad technical understanding to support your Agile credentials from software architecture through test, DevOps practices, security and operational run;

• A metrics driven approach to delivery evaluation and drive out systems and processes that help define and report on the metrics we believe to be important;

• Excellent stakeholder management skills  as we work to transform the Mercer IT and Business into a truly Agile organization you will need to influence and coach senior executives, many of whom will be new to Agile;

• Pods and squads are distributed globally and utilize a mix of permanent and partner staff who work largely remotely so experience of working with and motivating distributed teams is vital;

• Financially astute as you will instill Financial Management Disciplines into your team and be accountable for Engineering Delivery spend reporting and tracking;

• Be collaborative, inquisitive and interested in technology and best practices;

• Experience of a wide range of Technology roles is desirable, ideally with some form of development engineering or Agile Programme management background;

• Rounded and holistic understanding of Agile Methodologies such as CSP, SAFe RTE, KMP & ICP-ACC Certifications or their equivalent.

OUR BENEFITS & CULTURE

• An opportunity to work in a fast-growing, innovative company with lots of room for progression and career growth;

• A fail-friendly environment that encourages learning and initiative;

• A yearly budget and the opportunity to build your flexible benefits package (up to 20% of your annual salary);

• 30+ days off (25 legal days off, 1 extra day off on your birthday, public holiday replacement days, extra buy/sell from your benefits budget);

• Performance Bonus scheme

• Matching charity contributions, charity days off, and the Pay it Forward charity challenge;

• Core benefits - Pension, Life and Medical Insurance, Meal Vouchers, Travel Insurance;

• We champion flexible working, and our mission is to help you find YOUR work-life balance, whether that's standard working, flextime working, or working from home.

As a company we are committed to hybrid work, which includes the flexibility of working remotely and the collaboration, connections, and professional development benefits of working together in the office. Our teams will jointly identify at least one âanchor dayâ per week on which the full team will be together in person. This unwavering policy is carefully crafted to enhance team unity, inspire creativity, and foster meaningful interactions between our colleagues, to help build our culture and local communities.

Founded over 20 years ago, Darwin's main ambition was to change the world of benefits. Fast forward to the present day and it is leading the way as a cornerstone benefits technology product in the Marsh McLennan, (MMC), Tech portfolio. MMC are now building out their EMEA Technology Hub in Cluj, Romania.

MMC is a global professional services firm, headquartered in New York City with businesses in insurance brokerage, risk management, reinsurance services, talent management, investment advisory, and management consulting. It comprises the businesses of Marsh, Mercer, Guy Carpenter, JLT, Oliver Wyman and Darwin.

The regional hub will contain teams of Application Developers, Business Analysts, Project/Program Managers, and other technology roles that require time zone overlap with clients in EMEA. As a regional hub we are equipped to scale our vast technical expertise through a variety of outputs, while helping to unleash our potential as one company, to effectively meet today's emerging challenges through the brilliant technology we build and deliver together.