Scrum Master

Title: Scrum Master
Duration: Long Term
Location: Washington, DC
Hybrid Onsite: 4 days per week from Day 1, with a full transition to 100% onsite anticipated soon.
Position Overview: The Scrum Master/ Kanban Coach supports the Agile team by facilitating delivery, removing impediments, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. The role ensures adherence to Agile principles, promotes transparency, and enables effective collaboration across teams and stakeholders. The Scrum Master/ Kanban Coach is a key contributor to improving flow, predictability, and team performance.
Essential Job Functions:
Facilitation and Delivery Cadence:

• Run Agile ceremonies (Scrum or Kanban) to maintain predictable delivery and transparency, including Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Reviews/Demos, Retrospectives, and Kanban flow checkpoints.
• Prepare and facilitate PI Planning to align scope, capacity, and dependencies; ensure clear team PI objectives and iteration plans.

Coaching and Ways of Working:

• Coach the team and Product Owner on Agile principles, mindsets, and frameworks to improve flow, quality, and value delivery.
• Champion alignment to the ITS Operating Model, including Agile Ways of Working, value streams, and governance expectations.

Flow, Impediment Management, and Dependencies:

• Proactively remove impediments and manage/escalate risks and dependencies to protect throughput and achieve objectives.
• Coordinate with other Scrum Masters/Kanban Coaches, Release Train Engineers, and cross-functional teams to manage dependencies, including resolving cross-team blockers and synchronizing plans.

Visibility, Tooling, and Collaboration:

• Ensure accurate, timely visualization and tracking of work in Azure DevOps (ADO) or similar tool to support deliverables, decision-making and stakeholder transparency.
• Use visual collaboration tools (Mural or Miro) to facilitate planning, retrospectives, and workflow visualization; maintain effective visual management artifacts.

Metrics and Continuous Improvement:

• Guide teams in using flow metrics to drive measurable, continuous improvement and evolve working agreements.
• Foster a data-driven culture, psychological safety, and healthy team dynamics to enable experimentation and sustain performance.

Quality and Increment Delivery:

• Enable the team to deliver high-quality increments aligned with product objectives and Definition of Done, ensuring feedback loops through reviews/demos.

Educational Qualifications and Experience:

• Education: Bachelor s degree in computer science, Engineering, Information Technology, Software development, Marketing, Organizational Change Management or proven related experience as an expert in the relevant areas specified or as an advisor for a large company.
• 5 to 7 years of hands-on experience as a Scrum Master/ Kanban Coach in Agile delivery environments.

Certification Requirements:

Mandatory for Standard: SAFe Scrum Master Certification (SSM) or similar certification such as Professional Scrum Master (PSM), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), or Disciplined Agile Scrum Master (DASM).
Additional Value
SAFe Scrum Master Certification (SSM), SAFe Advanced Scrum Master (ASM), SAFe Product Owner (POPM), Release Train Engineer (SAFe RTE), SAFe Practice Consultant (SPC) or other advanced Agile certifications are an advantage.
Required Skills/Abilities:

• Strong proficiency with Azure DevOps (ADO) for backlog management, sprint execution, and reporting.
• Experience facilitating workshops and ceremonies using Mural or Miro.
• Demonstrated ability to coach teams and individuals on Agile principles and practices.
• Experience working in complex, multi-team environments (SAFe, Kanban, Scrum, or Scrumban preferred).
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and conflict-resolution skills.

Experience Matrix for Levels: Level III: 8+ years of experience