I’m back on the market. My contract’s wrapping up, and I’ve started scanning the job boards. There it is again — Release Manager. Right next to it? Scrum Master. And I can’t help but ask: How is this still a thing?

We’re nearly a quarter into the 21st century. Agile’s old enough to rent a car. DevOps has a full beard. And yet somehow, we’re still posting job ads for roles that feel like relics from the JIRA waterfall days.

Wanted poster for a Release Manager
Jobs that shouldn't exist in 2025.

Release Manager: The Role Automation Forgot

Back in the day, a Release Manager made sense. You needed someone to wrangle the release notes, schedule the deploy window (usually after hours), and pray to the gods of Subversion. But in 2025?

If you still need a full-time human to coordinate releases, your pipeline is broken — or worse, never existed. CI/CD isn’t new. Neither is trunk-based development. You shouldn’t need a “Release Manager” any more than you need a Compile Overseer or a Push to Git Button Technician.

@Release Manager
If your release process needs a manager, it probably needs a mercy killing instead.

Scrum Master: The Ritual Facilitator

The Scrum Master is the person in charge of reminding everyone that it’s Tuesday and therefore we must speak in 2-minute increments about yesterday’s “progress.” Bless them. It’s not their fault.

But Scrum — as practiced — often becomes a performance. A stand-up theatre. And the Scrum Master is the stage manager of this increasingly irrelevant play.

What most teams need isn’t a gatekeeper of ceremonies. They need time, clarity, and less JIRA spam. Empowered engineers and actual technical leadership solve more problems than any number of sticky notes ever will.

Coordination Is Not Progress

Hiring for coordination-heavy roles is often a symptom of deeper issues:

  • Release chaos? Your CI/CD is duct-taped.
  • Scrum drama? Your backlog is a trash fire.
  • Endless ceremonies? You’re optimizing for visibility, not delivery.

These roles exist to patch holes we should be fixing — not institutionalizing.

So, About That Job…

I’m not looking to become a Release Manager. I’m not here to facilitate your standups. I’m here to help your team ship better software — faster, safer, and with less noise.

If that sounds like something your team could use, well… get in touch.

Otherwise, best of luck with the next post-mortem retro.