Senior Scrum Master & Agile Coach

Senior Scrum Master & Agile Coach

Headquartered in Southern California, Skechers — the Comfort Technology Company® — has spent over 30 years helping people everywhere look good, feel good, and move through life in comfort. Comfort innovation drives everything we build, from bold footwear to an ever-expanding world of apparel and accessories. We're not just a brand — we're a global lifestyle movement, and data is how we connect with the millions of people who wear us every day.

Skechers Global Retail IT is seeking an experienced Senior Scrum Master & Agile Coach to join a growing team. This is a unique, ground-floor opportunity to build and shape the Agile practice for Global Retail Technology from the ground up. This role operates within a product-centric organization where the technology portfolio consists primarily of third-party software solutions, requiring a pragmatic Agile leader who can adapt principles and frameworks to configuration, customization, and operational workstreams.

This individual will serve as both a hands-on Scrum Master for one or more hybrid Agile teams and as an internal Agile coach — building capability and maturity across the organization, educating business stakeholders on Agile ways of working, and championing a culture of continuous improvement.

Agile Practice Establishment

• Design and implement a fit-for-purpose Agile practice tailored to the team and organization, where work consists primarily of configurations, customizations, integrations, and operational enhancements
• Define and standardize Agile ways of working across the department, including ceremonies, roles, artifacts, and cadences appropriate for hybrid Agile teams operating at a global scale
• Establish a common Agile framework and language — including Themes, Epics, Features, and User Stories — to ensure consistency in how work is defined, estimated, prioritized, and delivered
• Develop and maintain an Agile playbook tailored to the Retail IT context, serving as the foundational reference for teams, Product Managers, and stakeholders
• Define and track Agile maturity metrics and KPIs to measure adoption, team health, and continuous improvement over time

Scrum Master Leadership

• Serve as an active, hands-on Scrum Master for one or more hybrid Agile teams, facilitating all ceremonies including sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog grooming, sprint reviews, and retrospectives
• Establish team capacity, velocity, and sprint cadence; instill a practices like Definition of Ready and Definition of Done among others
• Guide Product Managers in backlog management best practices, including structuring Epics and User Stories, story pointing, and prioritization
• Identify, escalate, and remove impediments and dependencies that may impact delivery commitments
• Monitor and improve team velocity, sprint predictability, and delivery consistency through data-driven insights and retrospective action items
• Partner with Product Owners to communicate sprint demos, feature updates, and delivery outcomes to stakeholders
• Manage daily triage of defects and operational tickets, driving timely resolution in partnership with production support teams
• Handle incoming requests, issues, and decisions via Jira and Confluence, tracking to resolution and unblocking work as needed

Agile Coaching & Capability Building

• Coach Product Managers, team leads, and functional stakeholders on Agile principles, frameworks, and ways of working
• Develop and deliver Agile training programs, workshops, and onboarding materials tailored to a non-software development IT environment
• Mentor less experienced team members and serve as the go-to subject matter expert for Agile practice questions and challenges
• Champion a growth mindset and culture of continuous learning, experimentation, and iterative improvement across the Retail IT organization

Stakeholder Alignment & Change Management

• Partner with IT leadership, Product Managers, and business stakeholders to drive Agile adoption and ensure organizational alignment on ways of working
• Lead change management efforts associated with the introduction of Agile practices, managing expectations and communicating the value of transformation
• Facilitate cross-team alignment sessions and planning events to synchronize priorities, dependencies, and delivery commitments across workstreams
• Connect teams and stakeholders across IT, Digital, Retail, and other groups
• Serve as a trusted advisor to leadership on Agile best practices, team structure, capacity planning, and organizational design

Third-Party Software Adapted Agile Delivery

• Apply Agile principles pragmatically within the constraints of a third-party software solution environment, adapting standard frameworks to accommodate vendor release cycles, patch management, configuration windows, and external dependencies
• Establish practices for managing vendor-driven change, including the intake, sizing, and prioritization of platform upgrades, patches, and regulatory-driven modifications
• Ensure Agile ceremonies and artifacts reflect the realities of working within enterprise platforms where delivery is influenced by vendor capabilities and contractual boundaries

Tooling & Reporting

• Define and govern the use of Agile project management tooling (e.g., Jira, Confluence, Azure DevOps, or equivalent) to support backlog management, sprint tracking, and reporting
• Establish standardized dashboards and reporting cadences that provide leadership and stakeholders with real-time visibility into team progress, backlog health, and delivery performance
• Drive consistency in how Agile data is captured and reported, enabling meaningful trend analysis and benchmarking across workstreams

Requirements for Success

• Deep knowledge of Scrum techniques and artifacts including definition of ready & done, user stories, backlog refinement, etc.
• Servant leadership mindset with high emotional intelligence — knowing when to push and when to pull back
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to simplify and explain complex topics to business stakeholders at all levels
• Strong problem-solving and conflict-resolution capabilities
• Bias for action, efficiency, and continuous improvement
• Outstanding organizational skills with sharp attention to detail
• Proven ability to operate effectively across global teams, time zones, and cultures

Qualifications

• Deep experience using Atlassian Agile toolset (Jira, Trello, Confluence or similar)
• 10+ years in Scrum Master roles
• 7+ years' experience working in non-software development projects, preferably in consumer retail brands
• 5+ years working as an agile coach and teaching agile practices
• Agile, SCRUM or SAFe education or certifications required
• Experience working with diverse global teams in different time zones and cultures
• Advanced Scrum Master certification (e.g., A-CSM, SAFe SSM, PSM II, or equivalent) preferred
• Agile coaching certification (e.g., ICP-ACC, ICAgile, or equivalent) preferred
• Familiarity with SAFe or other scaling frameworks applicable to large, distributed IT organizations
• Experience with enterprise retail technology platforms, preferably point-of-sale and other retail store solutions

Pay range for this position is $165,000 – $200,000/year USD.

About Skechers

Skechers, a global Fortune 500® company, develops and markets a diverse range of lifestyle and performance footwear, apparel, and accessories. Serving over 180 countries and territories, Skechers connects customers to products through department and specialty stores, e-commerce and digital stores, and through our more than 5,300 Skechers retail locations.

Equal Employment Opportunity Skechers is committed to providing a safe, inclusive, and respectful work environment. Skechers provides equal employment opportunities for all employees and applicants for employment without regard race, color, religion, gender, gender identification and expression, national origin, marital status, age, disability, genetic information, military status, sexual orientation, or any other protected characteristic established by local, state or federal law.

Reasonable Accommodation Applicants for employment who require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job should request appropriate accommodation by emailing View email address on click.appcast.io perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each job responsibility satisfactorily. The skills, abilities and physical demands described are representative of those duties that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities, who are otherwise qualified for the job position, to perform the essential functions.