Release Train Engineer

About the Role:

Grade Level (for internal use):

12 The Team:

Our Technology Governance & Delivery Enablement team at S&P Dow Jones Indices drives operational excellence through Lean Portfolio Management and Agile ways of working across complex product portfolios, value streams and Agile Release Trains. We foster a collaborative culture focused on accelerating technology delivery while embedding innovative AI-enabled practices and Responsible AI governance. As a globally minded team, we value continuous learning, transparency, accountability, and high-performing cross-functional partnerships that deliver measurable business outcomes at scale.

Responsibilities & Impact:

ART Leadership & Delivery Management

• •Lead the planning and execution of Program Increments (PI) to deliver against prioritized business outcomes
• •Facilitating program increment planning readiness by fostering Continuous Exploration process which drives the combination of Vision, Roadmap, and backlog and through Pre and Post Pl planning Meetings
• •Coordinate with the Product Management and Tech Team to define the release on-demand plan as per prioritized epics/features for a program increment
• •Enhance planning efficiency by leveraging AI-generated summaries and action recommendations.
• •Facilitate core ART events, including PI Planning, ART Sync, System Demos, and Inspect & Adapt sessions, etc.
• •Ensure alignment between business strategy, portfolio priorities, and execution across value streams
• •Proactively manages risks, dependencies, and impediments impacting delivery across teams, including escalation as needed
• •Ensure effective prioritization aligned to business value and organizational goals
• •Drive predictability, quality, and efficiency in delivery across the ART(s)
• •Lead Scrum of Scrums/ART syncs and coordinates with scrum masters and other relevant members of an ART to effectively manage dependencies and risks
• •Use AI powered tools and predictive analytics to forecast feature completion timelines and capacity constraints.
• •Enable data-driven decision-making by integrating AI insights into Program Increment (PI) planning and execution.

Voice of Change & Team Enablement

• •Lead, coach, and develop Scrum Masters and/or Flow Masters to drive to build high-performing, self-organizing teams
• •Foster a culture of accountability, transparency, and continuous improvement across teams
• •Enable teams to deliver efficiently by removing impediments and improving flow
• •Support Product Management in leveraging AI to identify gaps, redundancies, or hidden dependencies in epics and features.

Agile Transformation & Coaching

• •Champion adoption and scaling of Lean-Agile and SAFe practices across the ART and broader organization
• •Coach leaders, teams, and stakeholders on Agile principles, practices, and mindset shifts
• •Support enterprise-wide transformation by mentoring across functions and value streams

Stakeholder Collaboration & Communication

• •Partner closely with Product Management, Business Owners, and Technology leadership to drive alignment and decision-making
• •Assist with economic decision-making by facilitating feature and capability estimation by teams
• •Communicate effectively across stakeholders to ensure transparency of progress, risks, and outcomes
• •Build strong cross-functional partnerships across teams and functions to enable seamless execution

Continuous Improvement & Metrics

• •Lead Inspect & Adapt workshops and implement improvement actions across teams and ARTs
• •Track and produce key program-level metrics reports (e.g. cumulative flow diagram, Pl burn-up, and burn-down charts, etc.)
• •Leverage metrics (flow, predictability, quality, outcomes) and insights to identify improvement opportunities
• •Leverage AI-powered tools to analyze sprint velocity, predict delivery risks, and identify bottlenecks across the Agile Release Train (ART).
• •Drive systemic improvements across ART and value stream operations

Cross-ART & Portfolio Alignment

• •Collaborate across multiple ARTs and valuestreams to manage dependencies and optimize integrated value delivery
• •Align execution with portfolio governance, enterprise priorities, and strategic themes

Responsible AI & Governance

• •Accountable for embedding Responsible AI practices across value streams
• •Promote adherence to standards for human oversight, data privacy, ethical use, and technical safeguards in delivery

Organizational Agility & Culture

• •Act as a change agent to advance Lean-Agile maturity across the valuestreams and divisions
• •Enable collaborative partnerships that support training, coaching, and adoption of Agile principles and scaled agile ways of working.
• •Influence cultural change toward a more adaptive, resilient, and learning organization
• •Must be able to be a voice of reason and authority and build consensus
• •Facilitate a healthy team dynamic with respect to priorities and scope

Knowledge Management & Collaboration

• •Utilize AI tools to capture, summarize, and surface key decisions, action items, and program knowledge across the ART.
• •Enable faster onboarding and alignment via AI-curated documentation and knowledge repositories.

What we are looking for:

• •Minimum 7+ yrs of RTE experience across product teams
• •3+ years of experience being a team level coach and/or program level coach
• •5+ years of people management experience
• •Significant experience leading Agile business value delivery in complex, matrixed organizations
• •Proven experience operating at Program and/or Portfolio levels
• •Strong knowledge and hands-on experience with SAFe framework and ART execution
• •Experience coaching teams, Scrum Masters, and leaders to improve Agile maturity
• •Strong facilitation skills in large, cross-functional environments
• •Proven ability to manage risks, dependencies, and delivery across multiple teams
• •Strong communication and stakeholder alignment skills across business and technology
• •Analytical mindset with experience leveraging metrics for decision-making
• •Exposure and experience related to AI capabilities in SAFe and Scrum Practices
• •Ability to understand domain specific and technical discussions so that he/she can facilitate the agile events and discussions in a meaningful way
• •Ability to partner with other Scrum Masters, different agile roles and teams to increase the effectiveness agile practices within the ART(s) and broader organization
• •Effective skills and experience in facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, predictability, and increasing transparency
• •Extensive experience in identifying the risks upfront and taking the accountability to get the risks resolved in a timely manner
• •Proven track record of enabling the teams to deliver prioritized business value efficiently with a focus on accelerated delivery, enhanced quality and maximum ROI
• •Expert in agile metrics and utilization of metrics for continuous improvement
• •Experience with tools like – Azure DevOps, Confluence, power BI, MS Teams, SharePoint, JIRA. VersionOne, etc.
• •Excellent organizational, statistical, analytical, problem solving, written and oral presentation skills
• •Proven track record of identifying and improving Agile execution on a team
• •Basic knowledge of lean portfolio management
• •Familiarity with Kanban practices and metrics
• •Thorough understanding of enterprise software development processes and lifecycle with familiarity of product development life cycle
• •Works effectively with leaders at all levels

Preferred Qualifications:

• •Bachelor´s in Business, Technology, or a related field (Master’s preferred)
• •Financial industry experience preferred
• •SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE) certification preferred
• •Additional certifications such as SAFe Program Consultant (SPC), SAFe Agilist (SA), or SAFe LPM are a plus
• •Deep understanding of Lean-Agile principles, DevSecOps practices, and value stream delivery
• •Prior roles as VSE or RTE and/or