3 min read App Distribution

Mobile Release Management for Teams of 10+ Developers

When your mobile team hits 10 developers, release management goes from "we just ship it" to "who's responsible for making sure this is ready?" Suddenly there are multiple people writing code, multiple testers giving feedback, and multiple stakeholders who want to see the latest build.

Without a system, you get the familiar chaos: "which build has the fix?", "did QA test this?", "I thought we were shipping Thursday?", and the classic "my build is 3 versions behind."

Here's the release management system that works for teams of 10 to 100+.

The Four Pillars of Team Release Management

1. Automated Distribution (Zero Manual Uploads)

If anyone on your team is manually uploading builds, you have a bottleneck. At team scale, distribution must be automated:

  • Developer merges to main → CI builds → build is automatically distributed to testers
  • No "can you upload the latest build?" messages
  • No wrong-version confusion
  • Release notes auto-populated from commit messages or changelog

Set this up once with GitHub Actions, Fastlane, Bitrise, or any CI tool via TA-CLI, and you never think about it again. Every build reaches testers within minutes of being merged.

2. Structured Feedback (Not Slack Threads)

The biggest time sink for engineering managers: collecting and organizing feedback from testers, PMs, and stakeholders who all report bugs differently, in different channels.

The fix:

  • Built-in task management — testers create issues directly from the app, attached to the specific build and device they tested on
  • Bidirectional Jira sync — issues created in testing sync automatically to Jira with build info, device details, and screenshots. Status changes sync back
  • Bidirectional Linear sync — same for teams using Linear
  • Blocker flags — any team member can flag a critical issue that blocks the release

The result: every piece of feedback lives in one place, linked to the build it was found in, and flows into your project management tool automatically.

3. Quality Gates (Not Gut Feelings)

At team scale, "I think it's ready" is not a release strategy. You need verifiable quality criteria:

  • Launch playbooks — customizable checklists that must be completed before shipping. "QA signed off", "PM reviewed", "No open blockers", "Performance tested on low-end device"
  • SLA tracking — are critical bugs being resolved within your target timeframe?
  • Activity visibility — see who installed the build, who tested, who gave feedback, and who hasn't engaged yet

Engineering managers use these to answer the daily standup question: "are we on track to ship this week?"

4. Team Notifications (Automated, Not Manual)

Stop being the person who messages the team every time a build is ready. Automate it:

  • Slack — new builds, blocker alerts, and feedback notifications in your team channel
  • Microsoft Teams — same for Teams-based organizations
  • Email notifications — automatic install links to testers
  • In-app updates — testers get notified when a new version is available

The Weekly Release Cycle at Scale

Here's what a typical week looks like for a team of 15 using this system:

Monday: Developers merge features from the sprint. CI automatically builds and distributes to QA team. Slack notification fires: "Build 4.2.1 (247) ready for testing."

Tuesday-Wednesday: QA tests on iOS and Android. Issues are created in-app, automatically synced to Jira. Two blockers are flagged. Developers see them immediately and start fixing.

Thursday: Blocker fixes are merged. New build is auto-distributed. QA re-tests the specific issues. Both blockers are resolved and marked as fixed in Jira.

Friday: Engineering manager checks the launch playbook: 8/8 items checked. No open blockers. 12 of 15 team members have installed and tested. PM has signed off. Build goes to production.

Total time the engineering manager spent on distribution logistics: approximately zero.

Setting Up for Your Team

If you're currently managing releases through a combination of TestFlight, Slack, Google Drive, and prayer, here's how to set up a proper system in one afternoon:

  1. Create your workspace — sign up and set up your workspace
  2. Invite your team — developers, QA, PMs, and stakeholders
  3. Connect CI/CD — GitHub Actions is the most common, but Fastlane, Bitrise, and TA-CLI all work
  4. Connect Slack/Teams — Slack or Microsoft Teams for notifications
  5. Connect your issue tracker — Jira or Linear
  6. Create your first launch playbook — define the checklist your team must complete before shipping

The whole setup takes an afternoon. By next week, your team will have the same release infrastructure used by teams of 50+ who ship every week without the chaos.

Further Reading