Scrum Master

Job#: 3023983

Job Description:

Role: Scrum Master

Location: San Antonio, TX (78259) 4 days onsite per week

Contract Duration: Long Term W2 Contract

Position Summary

A successful candidate will possess exceptional communication skills with particular emphasis on facilitating discussions and driving for consensus, often among highly diverse participants and interests. A successful candidate must be able to gain trust and build confidence with all team members and senior leadership to establish effective collaboration

This position belongs to a family of jobs with increasing responsibility, competency, and skill level. Actual position title and pay grade will be based on the selected candidate's experience and qualifications.

Key Responsibilities

• Organize and facilitate agile activities and ceremonies including daily stand-up meetings, iteration reviews, retrospectives, iteration and release planning, and product backlog refinement sessions.
• Ensure that all meetings are positive, productive, stay on topic, and are kept within the timebox.
• Collaborate closely with the product owner to manage the backlog.
• Effectively manage user story estimation and forecasting.
• Champion and facilitate adoption of agile standards, tools, and best practices.
• Coach team on established IT and corporate standards (e.g., security, quality, and architecture) to minimize operational and reputational risk.
• Proactively identify and resolve impediments to team progress.
• Communicate with leaders across the organization to ensure transparency into delivery progress, challenges, and risks.
• Utilize team feedback and metrics (e.g., quality, delivery, cadence, etc.) to identify areas of opportunity and work with team to continuously improve.
• Coach the team to improve collaboration and self-management, promoting healthy interactions both within the team and with external stakeholders.
• Represent the team at broader planning and coordination sessions (e.g., Scrum of Scrums).
• Support the team in using agile planning and development tools (e.g. Azure DevOps, JIRA, Confluence, Rally).
• Experiment with new practices and frameworks to improve team outcomes.
• Actively participate in learning opportunities such as communities of practice or conferences to improve skills and better support the team.
• Contribute to the advancement and improvement of agile practices within the organization.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent years of experience
• 3+ years of experience managing traditional projects/programs, including associate project accounting
• 3+ years of experience with agile development
• PMI Certification
• Agile Certifications (Scrum Alliance, Scaled Agile Framework, Kanban, etc.)
• Using agile delivery tools for managing progress and for reporting and analytics (Azure DevOps, Jira, etc.)

Skills

• Effective influencing and negotiation skills in an environment where resources are often not in direct control of this role.
• Excellent analytical, conceptual thinking, planning and execution skills.
• Excellent people and project management skills.
• Strong communication and presentation skills.
• Coaching skills and ability to motivate teams.
• Strong business acumen, including industry, domain-specific knowledge of the enterprise and its business units.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to explain IT concepts and technologies to business leaders, and business concepts to technology staff.
• A strong facilitator with experience engaging teams in a collaborative, distributed environment
• Deep knowledge of Agile delivery methodologies including SCRUM and Scaled Agile (SAFe )
• Demonstrated ability to communicate complex information in a condensed manner to various stakeholders verbally and in writing
• Growth mindset and a willingness to learn new skills, technologies, and frameworks

Apex Systems is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom and Mexico. Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.

Apex Benefits Overview: Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Apex team member can provide.