Director, Delivery & Release Management, Digital Product Operations

Job description

College Board – OCEP/Digital Product Location: This is a remote role, aligned to core EST hours . Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes. Role Type : This is a full-time position About the Team The Digital Product division is driving the evolution of College Board’s digital assessment experience, providing opportunities that shape futures and open doors. As AI reshapes education, we are preparing students for the future by ensuring our digital assessments remain secure, meaningful, and reflective of the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in an AI-enabled world. The Digital Product Operations team exists to bring clarity, structure, and measurable outcomes to how College Board’s Digital Product organization plans, delivers, and improves. We are a small, high-performing team that owns the operational systems, practices, and cross-functional coordination that enable 15+ product teams to deliver meaningful digital assessment experiences to millions of students and educators every year. We partner closely with Product, Technology, Design, and go-to-market functions, and we hold ourselves to the same bar we help others reach: rigorous, data-informed, and always improving. Together, we are transforming College Board’s trusted assessment platform into a next generation digital assessment experience that is secure, user-centered, and built to evolve with the future of learning and assessment. About the Opportunity As Director, Delivery & Release Management, Digital Product Operations, you thrive in complex, multi-team environments, seeing dependencies before they become blockers and simplifying without losing fidelity. You are a change agent with the ability to lead through influence rather than authority. You're comfortable building something new in a thoughtful, incremental way rather than mandating change overnight. In this role, you are the operational engine behind how Digital Product ships, the connective tissue between product development and go-to-market readiness. You own the systems, processes, and coordination that ensure new features and platform releases are planned with precision, tested with rigor, and launched with confidence, so the releases that reach millions of students and educators each year go out right. You build the process, then coach product, technology, and go-to-market teams through adopting it, bringing visibility, predictability, and accountability to how work moves from backlog to live. You earn trust through consistency and results, not a reporting line, with a drive to relentlessly improve the systems you own. In this role, you will: Release Management & Launch Readiness (35%) Act as a change agent for how Digital Product ships — convene Product, Technology, GTM teams, and leadership stakeholders to understand and align on their expectations before designing the release process; synthesize that input into a defined, documented release process that reflects the full organization’s needs and serves as the standard for how Digital Product ships Own and drive adoption of the release management process across all teams — coaching Product, Technology, and GTM teams through the process Own end-to-end release management for Digital Product — from feature intake through post-launch review — across SAT Suite, AP, CLEP, ACCUPLACER, and Bluebook platform releases Define and continuously improve release management standards, including how product information, release notes, and updates are communicated internally and externally Develop and maintain the integrated release calendar, surfacing cross-team dependencies, milestone risks, and capacity constraints to leadership Partner with Product, Technology, and GTM teams to ensure every release is preceded by accurate documentation, confirmed artifact delivery, and resolution of operational blockers — coordinating with Learning, Enablement & Readiness on people-side preparation Partner with the Director, ProdOps Intelligence & Strategy to use release and launch metrics to identify coaching opportunities and process improvement areas — continuously refining the release management process based on data and stakeholder feedback until adoption is consistent and self-sustaining Platform User Acceptance Testing (35%) Own and manage User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for the Digital Product platform — the cross-platform validation that confirms the platform works as expected from a real user and stakeholder perspective before every major release Act as a change agent for UAT practices across Digital Product — assess current UAT maturity across product teams, set clear UAT standards and goals in partnership with Product and Technology leaders, and motivate teams to develop the discipline of rigorous pre-launch validation; own the adoption of UAT processes across Digital Product, coaching teams through the process and iterating based on feedback Plan and execute UAT in partnership with Product Leaders, Managers, Owners, and Technology, including issue triage and final sign-off before launch Design and scale UAT processes that are repeatable, efficient, and appropriately rigorous as our portfolio of product releases grows Track and communicate UAT status, open issues, and resolution timelines to product and leadership stakeholders Serve as the quality gate between development and launch, ensuring releases meet user, performance, and accessibility standards before going live Partner with engineering, technical testing, and individual product teams to ensure UAT complements — rather than duplicates — their testing efforts, and clarify where each type of testing begins and ends Planning Coordination & Operational Visibility (30%) Participate in quarterly planning cycles to surface and resolve cross-team dependencies specifically related to release sequencing, UAT scheduling, and delivery timelines — ensuring the release calendar reflects the full picture of what is shipping and when across all product domains Own and maintain delivery-specific artifacts in Digital Product tools — including the integrated release calendar, UAT schedules, and release readiness trackers — ensuring they are current, accurate, and trusted as the source of truth for what is shipping and when Provide leadership with clear, narrative-synthesized visibility into delivery progress, release health, and key risks on a regular cadence Develop recommendations on process improvements with clear rationale and tradeoffs — own the implementation of changes, drive adoption across teams, and evaluate outcomes to confirm the improvement delivered the expected result Own the annual capitalized software reporting process in partnership with Finance — coordinating with Product and Technology leads to compile new functionality descriptions, IT development timelines, and release dates across all Digital Product platforms (including BAWP) required for the FY capitalized software memo About You To qualify for this role, you must have: 5+ years of experience in product operations or product management within a digital product or SaaS environment, with a strong focus on delivery and release management Experience leading or contributing to change management efforts, helping teams adopt new ways of working Comfort operating with ambiguity, defining tooling and evolving processes for a team still establishing its ways of working Demonstrated experience owning release management and UAT processes across multiple concurrent product teams Deep familiarity with Agile delivery practices and product management tooling with a track record of improving how teams use them Ability to lead through influence rather than authority, earning trust and buy-in from teams who don't report to you Strong cross-functional collaboration skills; equally comfortable in planning sessions and stakeholder readiness reviews with Product, Technology, Design, and go-to-market leads Exceptional organizational and communication skills; you create clarity for others, not just yourself A bias toward simplicity; you design processes people actually follow The ability to travel 5-7 times a year to College Board offices or on behalf of College Board business All roles at College Board require: A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work Authorization to work in the United States for any employer Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and comfort learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively. Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success About Our Process Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days. While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks. What We Offer At College Board, we offer more than just a paycheck—we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We’re a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation, grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market. A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation The hiring range for this role is $88,000 - $145,000 . Your exact salary will depend on your location, experience, and how your background compares to others in similar roles at College Board. We aim to make our best offer upfront—rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data. We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live. You’ll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more. #LI-MS1 #LI-REMOTE