Change Management, Release & Cutover Lead

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced Change Management, Release & Cutover Lead to support successful delivery and adoption of customer-facing technology solutions. The ideal candidate will have strong experience developing comprehensive test plans, coordinating business and technical stakeholders, managing organizational change, and planning complex releases and customer-facing cutovers.

This role requires strong coordination, communication, and risk-management capabilities to ensure solutions are thoroughly validated, deployments minimize business disruption, and impacted users and operational teams are prepared for change. Experience supporting customer service, customer support, or other service-oriented environments is strongly preferred.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop, manage, and execute comprehensive test plans in partnership with business, technology, QA, and operational stakeholders.
• Work closely with business stakeholders to define testing objectives, acceptance criteria, readiness requirements, dependencies, and success measures.
• Lead change management activities, including stakeholder communications, change-impact coordination, training planning, and organizational readiness.
• Develop and execute detailed release and deployment plans to support smooth implementation while minimizing business and customer disruption.
• Plan and manage customer-facing cutovers, including implementation schedules, dependencies, checkpoints, contingency plans, and post-deployment activities.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams across Business, IT, QA, Operations, Customer Support, Training, and other impacted groups.
• Identify implementation and cutover risks early and establish appropriate risk mitigation and contingency plans.
• Drive go-live readiness reviews and ensure business, operational, technical, and support teams are prepared for deployment.
• Coordinate training activities and ensure impacted teams have the necessary documentation, processes, and support before implementation.
• Manage stakeholder communications before, during, and after releases and cutovers.
• Monitor deployment and adoption activities and coordinate resolution/escalation of issues that could affect customers or business operations.
• Maintain focus on customer experience and operational continuity throughout testing, change, release, and deployment activities.

Required Qualifications

• Strong experience in Change Management, Release Management, Deployment Planning, and Cutover Management.
• Demonstrated experience developing and managing test plans and business readiness activities.
• Hands-on experience planning and coordinating customer-facing production cutovers.
• Strong stakeholder management and cross-functional coordination skills.
• Experience developing stakeholder communications and coordinating training and organizational-readiness activities.
• Strong understanding of implementation risk management, dependencies, contingency planning, and go-live readiness.
• Ability to coordinate multiple business and technical workstreams in complex enterprise environments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong problem-solving, planning, organization, and leadership abilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with change management in customer support, customer service, or service-oriented environments.
• Experience supporting large-scale enterprise technology implementations or transformation programs.
• Understanding of business acceptance testing, release governance, deployment readiness, and post-production support.
• Experience working in environments where customer experience, service availability, and operational continuity are critical.