Senior Scrum Master

Job Title: Senior Scrum Master

Location: Remote

Duration: / Term: Contract

Experience Desired: 15+ Years

Job Description:

We are seeking an experienced Senior Scrum Master with Project Management expertise to lead Agile delivery across multiple technology initiatives. This role will primarily focus on facilitating Agile execution, driving team effectiveness, removing impediments, enabling continuous improvement, and ensuring predictable delivery outcomes while also providing project management oversight for planning, governance, reporting, and stakeholder communication.

The ideal candidate will act as a servant leader for Agile teams while partnering closely with Product Owners, Business Stakeholders, Architects, and Engineering teams to ensure successful execution of strategic initiatives. This individual will help establish Agile best practices, improve delivery maturity, manage dependencies, and provide transparency into delivery progress, risks, and outcomes.

This is a hands-on delivery leadership role requiring strong Scrum coaching capabilities combined with practical project management experience in managing schedules, risks, dependencies, and executive reporting across multiple teams.

Key Responsibilities

Scrum Leadership (70%)

Agile Delivery Management

• Serve as Scrum Master for one or more Agile teams.
• Facilitate all Scrum ceremonies including Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, Retrospectives, and Backlog Refinement sessions.
• Coach teams on Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and Lean principles.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and accountability.
• Drive Agile maturity assessments and improvement initiatives.

Team Enablement

• Remove impediments that impact team productivity and delivery commitments.
• Protect teams from external disruptions and scope creep.
• Support Product Owners in backlog management, prioritization, and story readiness.
• Facilitate estimation sessions and sprint planning activities.
• Monitor team health, velocity, burndown trends, and sprint predictability.

Agile Metrics and Reporting

• Track and communicate Agile delivery metrics.
• Measure sprint velocity, capacity utilization, cycle time, lead time, and defect trends.
• Provide data-driven insights to improve team performance.
• Develop dashboards and reports for leadership visibility.

Dependency and Release Coordination

• Identify and manage cross-team dependencies.
• Coordinate releases and deployment activities across Agile teams.
• Facilitate collaboration between Product, Engineering, QA, Security, and Operations teams.
• Ensure alignment across multiple workstreams and release schedules.

Agile Coaching

• Mentor Scrum Teams, Product Owners, and stakeholders on Agile principles and practices.
• Promote self-organization and servant leadership.
• Drive adoption of Agile standards and best practices across teams.

Project Management Responsibilities (30%)

Project Planning and Governance

• Develop and maintain project plans, timelines, milestones, and deliverables.
• Track project status and provide regular updates to stakeholders.
• Ensure alignment of project objectives with business goals.
• Support portfolio and program reporting requirements.

Risk and Issue Management

• Create and maintain RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) logs.
• Proactively identify project risks and mitigation plans.
• Escalate critical issues and blockers appropriately.
• Facilitate risk review sessions with stakeholders.

Stakeholder Management

• Partner with business leaders, Product Owners, and technology teams.
• Communicate project status, impacts, and delivery forecasts.
• Manage stakeholder expectations and drive informed decision-making.
• Facilitate governance meetings and leadership reviews.

Resource and Capacity Planning

• Support resource planning activities across teams.
• Monitor team capacity and allocation.
• Assist leadership with delivery forecasting and roadmap planning.

Financial and Delivery Tracking

• Track project progress against plan.
• Monitor effort utilization and delivery commitments.
• Support budgeting and project forecasting activities where applicable.

Deliverables

Agile Deliverables

• Sprint Plans / Sprint Goals
• Agile Metrics Dashboards
• Velocity and Capacity Reports
• Release Plans
• Team Health Assessments
• Retrospective Action Plans
• Dependency Management Logs
• Agile Maturity Improvement Plans

Project Management Deliverables

• Project Plans and Timelines
• RAID Logs
• Status Reports
• Risk Mitigation Plans
• Executive Steering Updates
• Release Readiness Reports
• Stakeholder Communication Plans
• Resource and Capacity Reports

Ideal Candidate Profile

• 14+ years of overall IT experience.
• 5+ years of Scrum Master experience leading Agile teams.
• 3+ years of Project Management experience supporting technology delivery initiatives.
• Experience managing multiple Agile teams simultaneously.
• Strong understanding of Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, and Agile delivery frameworks.
• Proven experience facilitating Agile ceremonies and coaching teams.
• Experience with dependency management, release planning, and stakeholder communication.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Demonstrated experience in risk management and governance reporting.
• Ability to influence without direct authority.
• Experience working with distributed global teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in Digital Transformation, Cloud, Data, Analytics, or Cybersecurity programs.
• Experience supporting enterprise-scale Agile initiatives.
• Familiarity with DevOps and CI/CD practices.
• Knowledge of Azure DevOps, Jira, Confluence, and Agile reporting tools.
• PMP, CSM, PSM, SAFe Scrum Master, SAFe Agilist, or equivalent certifications.
• Experience working in highly regulated industries such as Insurance, Banking, Healthcare, or Financial Services.

Key Skills:

Program Management, Scrum Master, Agile, Kanban, Sprint, SAFe