Release Train Engineer

About Discovery

Discovery’s core purpose is to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. We seek out and invest in exceptional individuals who understand and support our core purpose, and whose own values align with those of Discovery. Our fast-paced and dynamic environment enables smart, self-driven people to be their best. As global thought leaders, Discovery is passionate about innovating in order to not only achieve financial success, but to ignite positive and meaningful change within our society.

About Vitality

Vitality, a subsidiary of Discovery Limited is responsible for the expansion of the Vitality Shared-Value Insurance business model beyond South Africa and the UK, serving to fully leverage the assets and intellectual property of Discovery beyond its primary markets. The business forms equity or contractual partnerships with leading global insurers to integrate Vitality and shared value with partner’s insurance and financial services products in the markets where they operate. Vitality also operates a business providing wellness solutions to employer groups in the United States. Vitality Health International, a business unit within Vitality coordinates and focuses on resource allocation to Discovery’s emerging, global health insurance initiatives. Vitality is also responsible for Discovery’s 25 percent equity investment in Ping An Health, the largest comprehensive medical insurer in China.

Key Purpose

• Facilitate Agile Program, that is, Agile Release Train processes and execution.
• Facilitate the resolution of impediments within span of influence. Once an impediment is outside of a Scrum Master’s span of influence the RTE steps in to remove or escalate the impediment to someone that can remove the impediment
• Develop a culture of collaboration - Act as a change agent to the team and organisation
• Supports the Agile team of teams to be self-organising and function as an accountable, high performance team
• Manage risk, help assure value delivery, and help drive continuous improvement.
• Participate in the Lean-Agile transformation in the organisation.
• Help adapt SAFe to meet the organisation’s requirements

Areas of responsibility may include but not limited to

• Act as the RTE (meaning Agile Program Manager) for multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs) within the VITALITY Business. Foster collaboration across ARTs

• Focus on guiding the teams within the ARTs towards improving the way they work.
• Organise, run and facilitate the Program Increment (PI) Planning
• Organise, run and facilitate Release Management forum
• Manage dependencies and secure Discovery Shared Services commitments and accountability for release plans.
• Provide release plans that offer realistic means of achieving commitments.
• Establish program level cadence and drive program level ceremonies (e.g. PI Planning, Scrum of Scrums, System Demo, Inspect and Adapt ceremonies)
• Manages and optimise the flow of value through the programme using various tools, such as ServiceNow ITBM.
• Establishes and communicates the annual calendars for iterations and programme increment cadence.
• Understand and operate within the ART Budget
• Ensure Release Train Capacity Management (does the train have the necessary skills to execute PI Objectives).
• Reporting on feature/capability completion tracking (KPIs/metrics)
• Work with product managers to aggregate team objectives into programme objectives and publishes them for visibility and transparency
• Support the implementation of Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
• Support and mentor Scrum Masters
• Participate in Value Stream Mapping (VSM) exercises and identify improvement opportunities

Personal Attributes and Skills

Lean-Agile Mindset

Facilitation skills

Behavioral Skills

• Teamwork and co-operation
• Stress Management
• Time management and prioritization
• Learning orientation
• Innovation
• Business Process Improvement
• Trouble shooting ability
• Bias for action
• Strong management skills

Technical Skills

• Knowledge and/or experience of Kanban
• Knowledge of the software development life cycle
• [Note: I don’t think this is essential as it can be picked up very quickly and there would be very few people with experience on ITBM] Essential you are fully proficient in Service Now ITBM, for example:
• Logging and tracking of Epics, Projects, Objectives, Features, Stories
• Proficient in SNOW report writing

Other

• Overtime may be required from time to time

Education and Experience

Education:

• Matric
• Certified SAFe practitioner, preferably SAFe RTE or Program Consultant (SPC)
• Tertiary degree (B. Engineer, B.Com, BSC) advantageous 

Experience:

• At least 2-4 years’ experience working in a RTE role within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
• At least 6 years’ experience working in an agile environment, preferably in a variety of situations
• Practical experience with flow metrics

EMPLOYMENT EQUITY   
                             
The Company’s approved Employment Equity Plan and Targets will be considered as part of the recruitment process. As an Equal Opportunities employer, we actively encourage and welcome people with various disabilities to apply.