Senior Associate - Scrum Master

Scrum Master

Location Designation: Hybrid - 3 days per week

Role Overview

We are seeking a hands-on Scrum Master to support New York Life's Technology Modernization Initiative by guiding an agile team in delivering high-quality, business-focused outcomes. This role is both facilitation and execution-focused - you will help the team plan effectively, remove impediments, improve delivery predictability, and foster a culture of transparency, accountability, and continuous improvement.

As part of Technology, you'll partner closely with product owners, developers & test engineers, business stakeholders, and quality partners to enable strong agile execution across the delivery lifecycle. Because this team does not have a dedicated test lead, you will also help coordinate quality-related activities, including test planning, defect triage, release readiness, and ensuring that acceptance criteria and testing expectations are clearly understood and tracked.

What You'll Do

• Serve as Scrum Master for an agile delivery team supporting New York Life's Technology Initiatives, facilitating ceremonies and enabling consistent delivery execution.
• Coach the team on agile principles, Scrum practices, collaboration norms, and continuous improvement, helping the team mature its ways of working over time.
• Partner with the Product Owner to support backlog refinement, sprint planning, prioritization discussions, dependency management, and clear articulation of acceptance criteria.
• Remove impediments, manage risks and dependencies, and escalate blockers appropriately to support delivery commitments and improve team predictability.
• Track and communicate sprint progress, team metrics, delivery risks, and release readiness with clarity and transparency for technology and business stakeholders.
• Facilitate cross-functional collaboration among developers, product owners, business partners, testers, and other delivery teams to align on scope, timing, quality, and outcomes.
• Support quality execution in the absence of a dedicated test lead by coordinating test planning, test case readiness, defect triage, UAT alignment, and release validation activities.
• Foster a team culture of ownership, accountability, learning, and continuous improvement through retrospectives, data-informed insights, and practical process improvements.

What You'll Bring

You will bring strong facilitation, leadership, problem-solving, and collaboration skills, along with a deep understanding of agile delivery practices. You are comfortable guiding teams through complex delivery efforts, helping them stay focused on priorities, managing dependencies, and continuously improving how they work together.

You communicate clearly with both technology and business partners, creating transparency around progress, risks, scope, and quality. You are adaptable, proactive, and outcomes-oriented - able to balance Scrum Master responsibilities with practical coordination of testing and release readiness activities when the team needs additional support.

Required Skills

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, business, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 5+ years of experience as a Scrum Master, Agile Lead, Delivery Lead, or similar role supporting technology delivery teams.
• Strong understanding of Scrum, agile planning, backlog management, sprint execution, retrospectives, and continuous improvement practices.
• Proven ability to facilitate agile ceremonies, remove impediments, manage dependencies, and improve team delivery predictability.
• Experience partnering with Product Owners, engineering teams, testers, business stakeholders, and leadership to deliver high-quality technology solutions.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and deliver high-quality results under tight deadlines.

Preferred Skills

• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), SAFe Scrum Master, or related agile certification.
• Familiarity with Varicent Incentive Compensation Management (ICM) Platform.
• Experience supporting enterprise modernization, financial services, insurance, or compensation-related technology initiatives.
• Experience with Jira, Confluence, or similar agile lifecycle management tools.
• Familiarity with modern quality engineering practices, test automation concepts, shift-left testing, and AI-driven delivery or testing innovations.

Pay Transparency

Salary Range: $124,000-$177,000

Overtime eligible: Exempt

Discretionary bonus eligible: Yes

Sales bonus eligible: No

Actual base salary will be determined based on several factors but not limited to individual's experience, skills, qualifications, and job location. Additionally, employees are eligible for an annual discretionary bonus. In addition to base salary, employees may also be eligible to participate in an incentive program.