Director, Release Train Engineer – Digital Experience Platforms

Join our Digital Transformation team!

As the Director, Release Train Engineer (RTE) - Digital Experience Platforms, you will serve as a servant leader and mentor for the Agile Release Train (ART) team, enabling the delivery of enterprise-grade digital experiences across sites. This role is critical in orchestrating SAFe / Agile practices, optimizing flow, and ensuring alignment across multiple Agile teams. You will work closely with collaborators across North America and be a key part to the success of Manulife’s Digital Transformation.

Position Responsibilities:

ART Leadership

• Facilitate all ART-level events: Program Increment (PI) Planning, Scrum of Scrums, System Demos, and Inspect & Adapt workshops.

• Ensure readiness across teams and alignment with business goals.

• Track ART progress, manage risks, and resolve dependencies using tools like Kanban and ROAM.

Coaching & Facilitation

• Mentor Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Agile teams in Lean-Agile practices.

• Promote self-organization, teamwork, and continuous learning

• Drive adoption of SAFe principles and DevOps practices.

Flow Optimization & Delivery

• Establish ART Kanban systems and supervise flow metrics (e.g., predictability, throughput).

• Support continuous delivery pipelines and CI/CD optimization.

• Conduct value stream mapping to identify and eliminate bottlenecks.

Partner Engagement

• Represent North America content priorities across multiple business units.

• Act as liaison between ART teams and business partners

• Ensure transparency on PI objectives, progress, and risks.

• Manage communications cross-channel, including internal collaborators, and partner with business teams to manage external customers of experience changes.

Technical Leadership

• Collaborate with engineering teams to integrate AEM Cloud and headless CMS into delivery workflows.

• Ensure compliance with accessibility standards (WCAG) and security requirements.

• Support architectures based on APIs and cloud-native solutions.

Required Qualifications:

• Experience in Agile delivery within public and secure site environments.

• Proven experience as a RTE or similar SAFe leadership role.

• Strong understanding of SAFe, Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban), and Lean principles.

• Familiarity with AEM Cloud, headless CMS (Contentful), and API-first architectures.

• Excellent facilitation, coaching, and servant leadership skills

Preferred Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; SAFe RTE certification preferred.

When you join our team:

We’ll empower you to learn and grow the career you want.

We’ll recognize and support you in a flexible environment where well-being and inclusion are more than just words.

As part of our global team, we’ll support you in shaping the future you want to see.

About Manulife and John Hancock

Manulife Financial Corporation is a leading international financial services provider, helping people make their decisions easier and lives better. To learn more about us, visit https://www.manulife.com/en/about/our-story.html.

Manulife is an Equal Opportunity Employer

At Manulife/John Hancock, we embrace our diversity. We strive to attract, develop and retain a workforce that is as diverse as the customers we serve and to foster an inclusive work environment that embraces the strength of cultures and individuals. We are committed to fair recruitment, retention, advancement and compensation, and we administer all of our practices and programs without discrimination on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, religion or religious beliefs, creed, sex (including pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions), sexual orientation, genetic characteristics, veteran status, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, or any other ground protected by applicable law.

It is our priority to remove barriers to provide equal access to employment. A Human Resources representative will work with applicants who request a reasonable accommodation during the application process. All information shared during the accommodation request process will be stored and used in a manner that is consistent with applicable laws and Manulife/John Hancock policies. To request a reasonable accommodation in the application process, contact recruitment@manulife.com.

Referenced Salary Location

Salary range is expected to be between

If you are applying for this role outside of the primary location, please contact recruitment@manulife.com for the salary range for your location. The actual salary will vary depending on local market conditions, geography and relevant job-related factors such as knowledge, skills, qualifications, experience, and education/training. Employees also have the opportunity to participate in incentive programs and earn incentive compensation tied to business and individual performance.

Manulife offers eligible employees a wide array of customizable benefits, including health, dental, mental health, vision, short- and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance coverage, adoption/surrogacy and wellness benefits, and employee/family assistance plans. We also offer eligible employees various retirement savings plans (including pension and a global share ownership plan with employer matching contributions) and financial education and counseling resources. Our generous paid time off program in Canada includes holidays, vacation, personal, and sick days, and we offer the full range of statutory leaves of absence. If you are applying for this role in the U.S., please contact recruitment@manulife.com for more information about U.S.-specific paid time off provisions.