R&D Release & UAT Lead - GPQSS Digital - IDC

The opportunity

As a Release / UAT Lead, you will play a critical role in ensuring digital solutions meet business expectations and are fully prepared for production release. You will be responsible for planning, scheduling, coordinating, and managing software releases across multiple teams and environments, ensuring timely delivery with high quality, minimal risk, and clear communication to all stakeholders.

You will lead and coordinate User Acceptance Testing (UAT) activities, serving as the primary point of contact between business stakeholders, product owners, and delivery teams. This role ensures successful validation of functional, usability, and quality requirements across applications that operate at the intersection of IT and business operations.

The Release / UAT Lead acts as a key bridge between development, QA, operations, and business teams, enabling smooth releases and successful business outcomes.

How you'll make an impact

• Plan, coordinate, and manage end-to-end software releases across all environments, ensuring timely, high-quality, and low-risk deployments. Define and maintain release schedules, calendars, runbooks, and governance standards while managing risks, dependencies, and rollback strategies.
• Act as the primary coordination point between development, QA, DevOps, product owners, and business stakeholders to ensure release readiness. Lead release readiness reviews, go/no-go decisions, production monitoring, post-release validation, and retrospectives.
• Drive continuous improvement through release automation, process optimizations, and lessons learned. Own and lead the end-to-end UAT strategy, including scope, timelines, entry/exit criteria, and alignment with Agile and release cycles.
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to validate functional, usability, regulatory, and quality requirements.
• Manage UAT planning, execution, defect lifecycle (logging, prioritization, tracking, retesting, and closure), and formal business sign-off. Provide clear UAT and release status reporting, metrics, risks, and recommendations to leadership teams.
• Ensure comprehensive documentation, including release notes, validation reports, and user experience improvement recommendations. Actively participate in Scrum ceremonies such as sprint planning, backlog refinement, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives to ensure alignment between UAT, release activities, and sprint deliverables. Collaborate with Scrum Masters and Product Owners to ensure acceptance criteria are well-defined, testable, and aligned with business outcomes.
• Responsible for ensuring compliance with applicable external and internal regulations, procedures, and guidelines.
• Living Hitachi Energy's core values safety and integrity, which means taking responsibility for your own actions while caring for your colleagues and the business.

• Required bachelor's in engineering (Electrical, Computer Science, IT, or related field) with 8+ years of overall testing experience, including 3-5+ years in UAT Lead, Test Management, or Release Management roles.
• Strong understanding of SDLC, UAT processes, Agile/Scrum, DevOps, and hybrid delivery methodologies.
• Proven ability to translate business requirements into UAT scenarios, acceptance criteria, and test coverage aligned with business workflows. Hands-on experience with test management and defect tracking in Azure DevOps. Solid knowledge of software quality assurance, release management, and change management practices.
• Experience working with enterprises, web-based, and integrated systems in global, cross-functional environments. Strong analytical, problem-solving, and risk assessment skills with the ability to identify gaps early.
• Excellent communication, organizational, and stakeholder management skills across technical and non-technical teams. Demonstrated ability to work independently, manage multiple releases, and deliver in fast-paced Agile environments.
• Practical experience working within Scrum teams, with strong awareness of Agile principles, sprint cycles, backlog management, and incremental delivery. Familiarity with roles of Scrum Master, Product Owner, and cross-functional teams, and the ability to effectively collaborate within Agile delivery frameworks.