Release Manager - MS Dynamics 365

The Landmark Group began its journey in 1973 with one store in Bahrain and has grown into one of the largest retail and hospitality conglomerates in the Middle East, Africa, and India. Currently, the Group operates over 2,200 outlets, encompassing over 30 million square feet across 21 countries.

Job Purpose:

The Release Manager owns the release calendar, the CI/CD pipelines, and environment administration for four Dynamics 365 instances. The role runs deployments on a common cadence, tracks every Microsoft release, and keeps all environments current, stable, and secure for Viva, eMax, SEA, and Wowmart. This is the discipline role of the CoE: one calendar, four production estates, and no surprise deployments.

Key Focus Areas:

• Release Calendar and Deployment Discipline
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Microsoft One Version Currency
• Environment and Application Administration
• Access Control

Job Description:

Release Calendar and Deployments

• Own the group release calendar across four instances and hold every team to it.
• Run deployments through test, UAT, and production with tested rollback plans.
• Coordinate release content with the Business and Product Owner and quality gates with QA Automation.

CI/CD Pipelines

• Build and maintain Azure DevOps pipelines for build, automated deployment, and environment refresh across the estate.
• Enforce branching, merging, and versioning standards in practice, not just on paper.

Microsoft One Version Currency

• Track every Microsoft release wave and plan its landing in each instance within Microsoft's servicing windows.
• Schedule regression windows with QA Automation ahead of each wave and manage exceptions with the Solution Architect.

Environment and Application Administration

• Administer environments through Lifecycle Services (LCS) and Power Platform Admin Center: refreshes, movements, monitoring, and servicing.
• Keep non production environments healthy and representative so testing results mean something.

Access Control

• Own user access administration and security role assignments across the four instances.

Run periodic access reviews and keep segregation of duties clean and auditable.

Professional Experience

• 5+ years in release management, DevOps, or environment management for enterprise platforms.
• 3+ years managing D365 F&O environments through LCS, including Microsoft update waves.
• Experience running releases across multiple production environments on a single calendar.
• Experience with security role administration and audit or compliance reviews preferred.

Technical Skills

• Azure DevOps: pipelines, releases, branching strategy, and build automation for D365.
• LCS and PPAC: environment servicing, movements, monitoring, and Microsoft support workflows.
• One Version: practical command of Microsoft's update cadence, servicing windows, and pause rules.
• D365 Administration: user and security role administration, batch job management, and system health monitoring.
• Scripting: PowerShell or similar for automating routine administration.
• Quality Integration: wiring RSAT suites into pipelines together with QA Automation.
• Build Automation: Microsoft hosted and self hosted build agents, deployable package creation, and package promotion between environments.
• Asset Library: managing deployable packages, data packages, and software versions through the LCS asset library.
• Environment Tiers: sizing and purpose of Tier 1 through Tier 5 environments, and what belongs where.
• Feature Management: controlling feature state per instance so a Microsoft feature never switches on in production unreviewed.
• Dual Write and Integration Health: monitoring integration jobs, batch queues, and dual write maps as part of daily estate health.
• Servicing Operations: package application, database movement operations, and point in time restore procedures.
• Golden Configuration: maintaining a golden configuration environment per instance as the source for refreshes.
• AI Assisted Operations: using Copilot in Azure and Power Platform Admin Center for environment diagnostics, and Copilot in Azure DevOps for pipeline authoring and release note generation.
• AI in Monitoring: using AI driven insights in LCS and Azure Monitor to catch performance degradation and batch failures before the business reports them.
• Discipline: exceptions to the calendar are decided deliberately, never drifted into
• Communication: both hubs always know what ships when
• Composure: runs production deployments calmly and rolls back without drama when needed
• Ownership: treats environment health as a personal standard, not a ticket queue
• Coordination: keeps engineers, QA, and the business owner moving to one cadence