Scrum Master

Two to three product teams in the payments space, each running two-week sprints, each with its own backlog, its own dependencies, and its own set of habits that may or may not be serving them. This role sits at the intersection of those teams, keeping delivery moving while also looking one level up at how the teams interact with each other and with the broader product family.

Success here looks like teams that ship predictably, surface blockers early, and have enough clarity on their sprint goals that scope negotiations don't derail the fortnight. Failure looks like a Scrum Master who runs the ceremonies competently but leaves the underlying dysfunction untouched: standups that are status reports, retrospectives that produce the same action items every two weeks, and a backlog that nobody trusts.

The role carries a coaching mandate alongside the facilitation work. That means naming anti-patterns when you see them, offering a concrete alternative, and following up to see whether it stuck. It also means contributing to a Scrum community of practice, so the thinking you develop on one team has a path to other teams.

- Languages / certifications: CSM, PMI-ACP, or equivalent Agile certification required
- Delivery tooling: Jira (3+ years, primary backlog and sprint management tool)
- Documentation and collaboration: Confluence (3+ years), Miro (3+ years)
- Metrics and reporting: team delivery metrics, OKR tracking (tooling not specified in JD)
- Scaling frameworks: exposure to SAFe, LeSS, or comparable multi-team coordination frameworks

- Establish and document a consistent operating cadence for each of the two to three assigned teams within the first 60 days, including ceremony formats, working agreements, and dependency coordination protocols
- Produce a baseline metrics report per team covering velocity, sprint goal attainment, and impediment age, and present findings to program leadership by end of month two
- Identify and remediate at least three recurring anti-patterns per team within the first quarter, with documented before-and-after observations
- Deliver a dependency map across the assigned product family that is actively maintained and referenced in PI or program-level planning sessions
- Facilitate roadmap and OKR alignment sessions between product owners and technology partners each quarter, producing written summaries of decisions and open items
- Contribute at least two facilitated sessions or written artifacts to the Agile Community of Practice within the contract term
- Complete team health or maturity assessments for each team at the six-month mark, with a written improvement plan tied to specific practices

Monday morning typically opens with a scan of each team's board before standups begin. You are looking for tickets that have not moved, dependencies that are closer to the sprint boundary than the team realizes, and anything that landed over the weekend that needs a conversation before it quietly becomes scope creep.

Standups run back to back across the two or three teams. You are not taking notes on task status; you are listening for the thing someone mentions in passing that is actually a blocker, and you are following up on it before the day ends. Mid-sprint, the work shifts toward impediment resolution: a conversation with a product owner about a story that keeps getting refined but never accepted, or a coordination call with a counterpart Scrum Master on a dependency that crosses team boundaries.

Later in the week there is usually a refinement session and the early preparation work for sprint review and retrospective. Retrospective prep means reviewing the previous retro's action items to see what actually changed, not just what was committed to. If the same theme appears for a third time, that is the conversation to have with the team rather than adding it to a list again.

Toward the end of a sprint cycle you will pull together a short metrics summary for program leadership, covering sprint goal attainment and any risks that need visibility above the team level. That summary is a working document, not a slide deck, and it feeds directly into the next planning conversation.