Remote Release Engineer (Azure and Databricks)

Our client is looking for a Release Engineer with a collaborative, can-do mindset who takes pride in helping teams ship reliable data products. You will design and build the automated code promotion framework for the client's data platforms and run the day-to-day release process. Your work will focus on packaging and promoting SQL, Python, and PySpark code, as well as ADF, Databricks, and Snowflake changes, with clear validation gates, approvals, and audit trails. You will set up monitoring, rollback paths, and hotfix flows so releases are fast, secure, and recoverable. By partnering closely with Data Engineering and Technical Development, you will strengthen our release automation and help drive the client's next phase in their digital journey.

Responsibilities

• Build and run automated code packaging/promotion using Azure DevOps Pipelines YAML and GitHub Actions.
• Build PR validation gates including code style, linting, unit tests, dependency checks, and secret scans.
• Implement approval flows, artifact versioning, release notes, and deployment audit logs.
• Package and promote data code across ADF, Databricks, Snowflake, and SQL with environment configs.
• Enable safe releases with rollback triggers, pre-deployment backups, and cherry-pick hotfix support.
• Create monitoring and alerts for promotions, track success rate, change failure rate, and time to recover.
• Standardize with reusable release templates and containerized promotion jobs.
• Write runbooks and handoffs for support teams, drive weekly post-release reviews and fixes.
• Use Git effectively including branching, PR reviews, required checks, and protected branches
• Orchestrate notifications and service integrations using Logic Apps and Azure Functions.
• Collaborate with Data Engineering and DataOps to plan releases and resolve issues quickly.
• Build observability for release health using pipeline logs, metrics, and dashboards.
• Perform root cause analysis for production errors.
• Maintain strong Git practices including branching, required checks, and protected branches.
• Document standards and runbooks in Confluence and manage work in Jira including release tickets and RCA.

• 8+ years in release engineering and building automation
• Hands-on with version control and build tools like Git, Azure DevOps Pipelines, and GitHub Actions
• Proficiency with Git workflows (branching, PR reviews, validation gates, branch protections)
• Strong experience with Azure services to support releases (VNets and NSGs, Virtual Machines, Azure Storage, Managed Identities, Key Vault, Load Balancer or Application Gateway, AKS fundamentals)
• Scripting/programming in Python and PowerShell for automation and tooling
• Experience with ADF, Databricks, and Snowflake code promotions across multiple environments.
• Experience with Docker for tooling, Azure Container Registry, running promotions in containers for repeatability
• Knowledge of rollback and recovery patterns including pre-deployment backups and hotfix flows.
• Familiarity with containerized build and release tasks and secret management via Key Vault or managed identities.
• Strong experience with data releases, specifically promoting data pipelines, monitoring releases, tagging, cost tracking, and operational reporting for release health
• Experience building a 24/7 release framework. Clear SLAs, monitoring, and fast recovery

Nice to Have Skills & Experience

• Experience building reusable release templates and task libraries in YAML-based pipelines and GitHub Actions.
• Strong understanding of artifact versioning, publishing practices, and dependency management.
• Background in building dashboards and observability tools to monitor deployment metrics and release health.
• Exposure to advanced deployment strategies including parallel, queued, blue-green, and canary releases.
• Knowledge of FinOps practices: tagging, right-sizing, and cloud cost optimization for release workloads.
• Understanding of networking, containerization, security principles, and DevSecOps best practices (Docker, AKS, Key Vault)
• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum methodologies and collaborative release planning with stakeholders.
• Strong collaboration, prioritization, and adaptability skills to support fast-changing release demands.
• Azure Certifications: Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) or higher (e.g., AZ-104 Azure Administrator Associate, AZ-400 Azure DevOps Engineer Expert)

Benefit packages for this role will start on the 1st day of employment and include medical, dental, and vision insurance, as well as HSA, FSA, and DCFSA account options, and 401k retirement account access with employer matching. Employees in this role are also entitled to paid sick leave and/or other paid time off as provided by applicable law.