Release Train Engineer - BA07CE

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The Hartford is looking for a Release Train Engineer (RTE) to join us on our transformation to Lean-Agile ways of working. The Release Train Engineer's primary role within the Personal Lines Technology Organization is to be a servant leader and coach for one of our Agile Release Trains (ART) who facilitates program-level processes and program execution, escalates impediments, manages risk, and helps drive program-level continuous improvement. In addition to facilitating program events, RTEs are responsible for keeping both scrum team members and business and technology leaders apprised of progress against objectives.

• Collaboration with high-performing, forward-focused teams and stakeholders
• Opportunity to be part of an Agile transformation
• Leverage Agile principles and practices at scale
• Frequent mentoring and feedback

• The RTE's focus is to deliver value by managing and/or facilitating program level processes, execution, innovation, program dashboard management, team integrations, impediment escalations, risk management, and continuous improvement.
• Be an advocate, coach, and educator within The Hartford of Agile best practices (e.g., epics, capabilities, features, program backlog management and facilitation, train-level metrics).
• Maintain a strong connection with people outside the organization to bring in recent research, data, and tools that can continue to mature Agile at The Hartford especially enabling built-In Quality Practices.

• Manage the relationship with Product Managers, AVPs and VPs of IT Management, the Lean Portfolio Manager and other leaders to refine program backlogs.
• Facilitate the agile processes at the program level, including planning periodic reviews and planning sessions with team and product stakeholders, such as ART Synch, Release Planning, System Demos & Solution Demos, the Inspect & Adapt Workshops, and the Scrum of Scrums.
• Establish and communicate the Iterations and Program Increments (PIs) cadence with the Business Roadmap.
• Facilitate the management and prioritization of all work and ensure alignment to the strategic roadmap.
• Collaborate with the appropriate individuals to translate business strategy into technology strategy and ensure that capabilities required by the business are enabled.
• Maintain scorecards or productivity metrics consistent with Agile governance standards.
• Foster communication and collaboration between Agile teams within the Agile Release Train (ART) and all appropriate stakeholders.
• Use tools to manage and improve flow of value through the ART.
• Manage the program backlog that feeds work to the ART • Remove barriers and impediments to ART effectiveness • Identify enterprise-level continuous improvement opportunities and drive implementation.
• Facilitate PI Planning readiness and PI Planning Events
• Optimize PI Planning readiness by fostering preparation of Vision, Backlogs, Roadmap and Ideation processes.
• Facilitate relentless improvement for the ART through continuous improvement opportunities and ART Inspect & Adapt sessions.
• Matures Agile practices of ART's teams and stakeholders.
• Execute on the workforce strategy for the workstream(s), inclusive of vendor partners, such that the ratios of employee/vendor, onshore/offshore, HIG offices, skill and technology needs are considered to achieve an optimum balance.
• Track and communicate key ART metrics, including impediments execution progress and business value delivery.
• Collaborate with IT leadership to define tolerable risk levels and manage/mitigate ART risks and dependencies.
• Report planning results and epic status to senior management, business owners, product owners and other stakeholders.
• Ensure all teams on the ART adhere to established governance models.

• 2-3 years of experience as a Release Train Engineer
• Previous experience in any part of the software development lifecycle - as developer, tester, analyst, product owner, project manager, etc. is a plus.
• Experience using Agile toolsets such as Rally.
• Strong communication, facilitation, presentation and consensus building skills
• Working knowledge of Scaled Agile framework (SAFe)
• Working knowledge of Agile frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, XP, etc.
• Working knowledge of Scrum theory, rules and practices
• Working knowledge of software development processes and procedures to understand team needs; includes fundamentals of iterative and incremental development
• Working knowledge of Agile techniques: User Stories, Continuous Integration, Test-driven Development, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Burn-down Metrics, Velocity etc.