Release Train Engineer - Merchant Delivery 12-Month Independent Contract | Cape Town Preferred | SA citizen / Own Laptop Contract Details
- Release Train Engineer - Merchant Delivery
- Independent Contractor
- 12 Months
- Cape Town
About the Opportunity
An exciting opportunity exists for an experienced Release Train Engineer (RTE) to support the delivery of strategic merchant payment and business solutions within a large-scale, enterprise digital payments environment. The successful candidate will operate within a SAFe Agile Release Train responsible for delivering merchant services, digital payment capabilities, mobile applications, value-added financial services, and enterprise solutions. This role requires a strong blend of Agile delivery leadership and technical expertise, as the successful consultant will not only facilitate ART delivery processes but will also contribute directly to technical and delivery-related initiatives. The ideal candidate will possess strong stakeholder management capabilities and be able to coordinate delivery activities across Product, Engineering, Architecture, Operations, Business and Vendor teams.
Role Purpose The Release Train Engineer is responsible for translating product priorities into integrated delivery plans, ensuring alignment between strategy and execution, and driving successful delivery through the Agile Release Train. The role oversees execution from discovery and planning through development, integration, testing, deployment, launch and post-launch stabilisation. Working within a SAFe environment, the RTE will facilitate ART ceremonies, manage delivery risks and dependencies, improve delivery flow, coach teams and leaders, and help drive continuous improvement across the organisation. Success in this role is measured by the ability to deliver quality merchant capabilities at pace while ensuring technical readiness, operational readiness and business value realisation.
Key Responsibilities
Servant Leadership
- Build a collaborative environment across Product, Technology, Design, Operations, Business and Vendor teams.
- Support teams in identifying and resolving impediments.
- Foster a culture of transparency, collaboration and accountability.
- Coach teams and leaders using Agile and Lean principles.
- Support personal and team development initiatives.
- Promote customer-centric decision making.
- Escalate issues requiring leadership intervention.
Strategy Execution
- Drive delivery of the strategic product roadmap.
- Partner with Product Management, Architecture and Portfolio stakeholders to align delivery outcomes.
- Manage dependencies, trade-offs and delivery priorities.
- Ensure delivery within agreed timelines, budgets and governance frameworks.
- Support Lean Budget management and adherence to portfolio guardrails.
Delivery Flow Optimisation
- Improve value flow across the Agile Release Train.
- Support DevSecOps and Continuous Delivery practices.
- Identify and remove delivery bottlenecks.
- Manage risks, dependencies and mitigation plans.
- Ensure readiness across software, infrastructure, certification and rollout activities.
Program Increment (PI) Planning
- Prepare and facilitate PI Planning events.
- Drive readiness activities through Continuous Exploration.
- Facilitate estimation of Features, Capabilities and Epics.
- Consolidate Team PI Objectives into Program Objectives.
- Support resource planning and capacity management.
Program & Release Execution
- Track feature delivery and programme progress.
- Manage dependencies across teams and third-party suppliers.
- Facilitate ART Syncs, System Demonstrations and Inspect & Adapt workshops.
- Provide delivery reporting and executive-level status updates.
- Coordinate pilots, phased deployments, go-live activities and post-launch support.
- Drive effective vendor and partner management.
Innovation Enablement
- Enable experimentation, pilots and proof-of-concepts.
- Support Lean UX and customer-focused innovation initiatives.
- Foster innovation cycles that improve customer outcomes and business value.
Continuous Improvement
- Drive relentless improvement across teams and delivery practices.
- Support Communities of Practice.
- Promote engineering excellence and built-in quality.
- Capture lessons learned from releases, incidents and customer feedback.
- Collaborate with governance and value management functions to improve operational excellence.
Required Skills & Experience Essential
- Proven experience as a Release Train Engineer within a SAFe environment.
- Strong understanding of Agile, Lean and SAFe delivery frameworks.
- Demonstrated experience facilitating Program Increment (PI) Planning and ART ceremonies.
- Strong delivery management experience across complex enterprise environments.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
- Experience managing risks, dependencies and cross-functional delivery teams.
- Strong reporting and governance capabilities.
Mandatory Technical Background The business requires candidates with a strong technical foundation who can contribute directly to delivery outcomes. Suitable backgrounds include:
- Software Engineering
- Application Development
- Systems Engineering
- Solution Architecture
- Technical Delivery Management
- DevOps Engineering
- Platform Engineering
- Enterprise Integration
Candidates must be comfortable engaging with architects, developers, engineering teams and technical stakeholders.
Highly Desirable
- Digital payments, fintech, banking or financial services experience.
- Mobile application delivery experience.
- API, integration and microservices delivery exposure.
- Experience working within large-scale digital transformation programmes.
- Vendor and third-party delivery management experience.
- SAFe certifications (RTE, SPC, Agilist or related).
Key Performance Indicators
- Program Predictability Measure
- Flow Efficiency
- Flow Distribution and Load Management
- Deployment Frequency
- Continuous Improvement Outcomes
- Delivery Against Strategic Roadmaps
- Effective Agile Coaching
- Governance and Risk Management Effectiveness
Desired Skills:
- Scrum Coaching
- Agile coaching
Desired Work Experience:
- 2 to 5 years
Desired Qualification Level:
- Grade 12 / Matric
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