Senior Manager, Software Product & Release Operations

Who we are Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. The Aurora Driver https://aurora.tech will create a new era in mobility and logistics, one that will bring a safer, more efficient, and more accessible future to everyone. At Aurora, you will tackle massively complex problems alongside other passionate, intelligent individuals, growing as an expert while expanding your knowledge. For the latest news from Aurora, visit aurora.tech http://aurora.tech or follow us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/auroradriver. Aurora's Product Operations team is at the fore-front of technology, providing partnership to product, operations & engineering and ensuring commercial operations capabilities are delivered on time, safely and efficiently. Within Product Operations, our Software Product & Release Operations function owns the release cadence and readiness of everything Aurora ships in software — closing the gap between engineering roadmaps and operational readiness, not just reporting on it. We're searching for an innovative, solutions-oriented leader to own the software release cycle end-to-end, from build readiness through rollout, as Aurora ramps production toward 20 AVs deployed per week following our first AAET launch. This role partners closely with Aurora Driver and Service Engineering , Launch Operations, and Product Ops & Platform Enablement. You'll be both the accountable owner of software Go/No-Go decisions and the primary translator of engineering roadmaps into an operational readiness plan the rest of Product Operations can plan against. To be successful in this role, you need to pair technical fluency in software release management with a data-driven outlook, exceptional communication skills with strong executive presence, the ability to bring ambiguity into focus in a fast-paced environment, and the ability to influence stakeholders without direct authority. You will report directly to the Senior Director, Product Operations, and be based in San Francisco, Pittsburgh or Dallas, with willingness to travel to test sites and partner facilities as needed. In this role you will: - Own Enterprise-Wide Customer and Operations Release Strategy: Own and evolve the overarching operations release strategy across software, autonomous systems, and fleet operations, ensuring our release and rollout framework scales seamlessly with business and fleet growth. - Define Release Operational readiness & risk Governance: Define and institute company-wide release readiness and risk gating standards, serving as the accountable authority for the evaluation framework leadership relies on to clear commercial deployments. - Drive Cross-Functional Capability Roadmap Alignment: Partner directly with VP and Director-level leaders across Engineering, Product, and Commercial Operations to align multi-year capability roadmaps with commercial and business GTM expansion targets. - Unify Multi-System Releases: Unify release governance across complex, interdependent software, hardware, and platform changes—resolving top-level trade-offs and cross-departmental dependencies when release timelines conflict with operational readiness - Establish Customer & Operations Release & Health Metrics: Define, own, and report on enterprise release predictability, defect escape metrics, and roadmap-to-readiness lead times for executive leadership. - Manage Feature & Defect Escalation Frameworks: Standardize backlog hygiene and defect escalation pathways across the software and operational release pipelines, ensuring systemic feedback loops exist between field performance and engineering. - Own the Software Release and change Management Cycle: Own and evolve the overall release strategy across autonomous operations. Spanning across the entire software release cycle, from build readiness through rollout, in partnership with Software Engineering. - Manage Feature and Bug Tracking: Own backlog hygiene and defect escalation paths across the software release pipeline, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks between Engineering and Operations. - Coordinate on Mixed Releases: Partner with Product Ops & Platform Enablement on releases that span both software and hardware/platform changes, deferring Go/No-Go authority to them for the hardware/platform components. - Drive Release Metrics: Own and report on release predictability, defect escape rate, and roadmap-to-readiness lead time. Required Qualifications: - 7+ years of experience in program/product operations, technical program management, or release management, ideally in a software-driven environment with adjacent hardware dependencies (automotive, robotics, or similar) - Demonstrated experience owning a software release cycle end-to-end, including build readiness, rollout, and defect management - Proven track record of building or improving feature and bug tracking systems and processes at scale - Strong cross-functional stakeholder management — this role sits between Engineering and Operations and needs credibility with both - Comfort operating in a fast-scaling, R&D-to-commercial transition environment — someone who builds repeatable process without over-engineering it around a moving technical target - Strong analytical and communication skills, able to translate technical release data into clear, actionable recommendations for both technical and executive audiences Desired Qualifications: - Experience in autonomous vehicles, automotive, or another safety-critical software domain - Familiarity with how software releases interact with hardware/platform dependencies, even without owning that release cycle directly - Background in technical program management or software release engineering - Experience working with BI tools (Tableau, Looker, PowerBI, etc.) for release metrics tracking - Familiarity with Jira, Confluence, or equivalent tools for release and backlog tracking For roles based in San Francisco, CA: The salary range for this position is $179,000 - $287,000 per year. For roles based in Pittsburgh, PA and Dallas, TX: The salary range for this position is $162,000 - $259,000 per year. Aurora’s pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, the successful candidate’s starting base pay will be determined based on factors including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, relevant education or training, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future. The successful candidate will also be eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits. Working at Aurora At Aurora, we bring together extraordinarily talented and experienced people united by the strength of our values. We operate with integrity, set outrageous goals, and build a culture where we win together — all without any jerks. We believe in-person work increases collaboration, empathy, and our ability to lead effectively. As a result, Aurorans are expected to work from the office at least 3 days per week, with some roles requiring more frequent in-office presence, up to 5 days per week, based on operational needs. Our Careers page https://aurora.tech/careers provides insight into what it is like to work at Aurora, and you can find all the latest updates in our Newsroom https://aurora.tech/newsroom. Our commitment to safety At the core of everything we do is our commitment to safety. Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and we believe that each employee at Aurora has a role in contributing to safety, every step of the way. Aurora expects commitment to our safety policies from every employee, and seeks candidates who take an active responsibility, can contribute to building an atmosphere of trust, and invest in the organization’s long-term success by prioritizing working safely, no matter what. Our commitment to inclusion Aurora considers candidates without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy status, parent or caregiver status, ancestry, political affiliation, veteran and/or military status, physical or mental disability, or any other status protected by federal or state law. Aurora considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected]. For California applicants, information collected and processed as part of your application and any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Aurora’s California Employment Privacy Policy.