Senior Release Control Analyst

Who are we

Western National Insurance Group is a private mutual insurance company with over 120 years of experience serving customers property-and-casualty insurance needs in the Midwestern Northwestern and Southwestern United States. Known as The Relationship Company we define success as a measure of the relationships weve built over everything that we do we know that delivering a friendly and helpful interaction makes for a better experience for everyone involved. Thats the power of nice. At Western National nice is something we work to bring to every person and organization with whom we partner and serve.

Does this opportunity interest you

Western National is seeking a Senior Release Control Analyst to join our team!

The individual in this role will have the opportunity to partner with multiple areas of the organization to support release management process. The work includes hands-on code releases as well as the continual improvement of the release management process.

What are the responsibilities and opportunities of this role

• Oversees and schedules promotion of business software and associated tables from pre-production environments to production environments.
• Reviews documentation submitted by programmers and business analysts to support implementation ongoing maintenance changes fixes and projects.
• Documents process updates ensures proper tool functionality and trains users to ensure proper execution of the release management process while continually improving processes used to deploy software.
• Partners with application developers to develop and implement structured implementation concepts methodologies and automated processes.
• Maintains promotion calendar and detailed promotion logs by application.
• Works with development team to establish effective back-out procedures for production software promotions.
• Coordinates with other IT teams to minimize change conflict and risk across the IT environment.
• Reports software promotion statistics including number of promotions per environment number of emergency promotions promotion issues and more.
• Defines key performance indicators for the release management process and ensures that performance goals and service level agreements are being met.
• Assists in the management and refresh of testing environments according to the needs of business projects and routine maintenance activities.
• Automatically makes decisions on nonroutine issues.
• Recognizes problems or situations that are new or without clear precedent.
• Finds solutions using a systematic multi-step approach.
• Makes and implements recommendations to solve more complex problems.
• Consistently acts according to our customer experience standards including responding quickly maintaining a positive attitude building rapport demonstrating empathy managing the customers expectations using the proper communication channel for the situation and taking ownership to ensure the customers issue is resolved.
• Performs additional duties as assigned.

What are the must-have qualifications for a candidate

• Demonstrated experience with software release management.
• Hands-on experience releasing code.
• Demonstrated experience managing and approving change requests.
• Strong oral written and interpersonal communication skills with ability to work effectively with all areas of the IT organization.
• Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Understanding of sources control tools iSeries operations and managing objects.
• Proficient use of various core systems office and computer equipment and software packages.
• Working knowledge of ITIL processes.
• Bachelors degree; experience in lieu of degree acceptable.

What will our ideal candidate have

• Demonstrated excellent organizational time management and prioritization skills.
• Ability to work independently meet deadlines and maintain dependability.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities.
• Ability to work flexible hours including early mornings evenings and weekends as needed to support promotion requirements and schedules.
• ITIL certification preferred.
• Working knowledge of source control tools such as TortoiseSVN and ALDON.
• Experience with environment management including coordinating and maintaining pre-production and production environments to support releases testing and deployment schedules.
• Experience with configuration management (CMDB) including CI modeling relationship mapping and maintaining data integrity across applications infrastructure and environments.

Compensation overview

The targeted hiring range for this role is $93000 - $128000 annually. However the base pay offered may vary depending on the job-related knowledge skills credentials and experience of each candidate as well as other factors such as the scope and location of the role. Candidates looking for compensation outside of the posted range are encouraged to apply and will be considered based on their individual qualifications and / or may be considered for other positions.

Western National Insurance Group reserves the right to fill this position at a level above or below the level included in this posting.

Culture and Total Rewards

Western National has long been known as The Relationship Company and caring for our employees is part of that relationship commitment. We value connectiveness empowerment and accountability and we believe that our employees are our biggest asset.

Currently ranked as the 41st largest private company by revenue in Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal) Western National has earned accolades year-over-year as an employer of choice and garnered multiple awards for wellness in the workplace. Western National has also been named a Top Workplace by the Star Tribune for consecutive addition the Group is consistently recognized as a Wards 50 property-and-casualty insurance company for its outstanding financial results.

Western National offers full-time employees a significant Total Rewards Package including:

• Medical insurance plan options and other standard employee benefits including dental insurance vision benefits life insurance disability insurance and more!
• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) and Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• 401(k) Plan (participants are eligible for 100% matching on the first 6% of their contributions)
• Wellbeing Program including onsite fitness studio
• Paid Time Off including holiday vacation and volunteer
• 100% company-paid tuition reimbursement for approved job-relevant coursework and access to The Institutes (Risk and insurance education)
• Paid parental leave
• Bonus opportunities

Western National believes in supporting balance between work and life by providing a flexible work environment which includes a variety of hybrid and remote work arrangements designed to balance individual job department and company needs.

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

Western National provides employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race color religion age sex national origin disability status genetics protected veteran status sexual orientation gender identity or expression or any other characteristic protected by federal state or local laws.