Scrum Master

Pay Status and Classification:

Exempt, Regular Full-time

Vice President of Software Development

Remote in New York or Texas. If in New York and local to company headquarters in Schenectady, NY there are days the Scrum Master is expected to be in the office for company meetings.

The Scrum Master supports development Scrum Teams and plays a key role in enabling a dual-scrum operating model in which both the Product Owner (PO) team and development teams iterate in coordinated sprints. This role ensures that product discovery outputs flow into clear, actionable, sprint‑ready work while driving predictable execution, strong collaboration, and continuous improvement across Product, User Experience (UX), Quality Assurance (QA), and Engineering.

• Dual-Scrum Facilitation & Product Owner
  
  Collaboration:
  
  Partners closely with Product Owners as they work in their own discovery and refinement sprints. Ensures alignment between Product sprint outputs and Development sprint inputs. Facilitates joint sessions to clarify requirements, break down work, and ensure Definition of Ready is consistently met. Guides POs in user story creation, acceptance criteria clarity, and incremental delivery planning.
• Scrum Ceremony Facilitation &
  
  Coaching:
  
  Facilitates all Scrum ceremonies for onshore development teams, including sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives. Coaches team members on Scrum values, principles, and role expectations. Strengthens team accountability, transparency, and self‑organization.
• Backlog Readiness & Workflow Optimization: Leads backlog refinement and readiness sessions to maintain a predictable pipeline of sprint‑ready work 1–2 sprints ahead. Identifies story gaps, dependencies, and risks early and ensures follow‑up with relevant stakeholders. Supports smooth handoff from Product discovery → engineering analysis → development → QA validation.
• Impediment Resolution & Team Support: Proactively identifies and removes blockers that impact sprint progress or quality. Protects teams from scope creep, unplanned work, or conflicting priorities. Promotes continuous improvement and fosters a culture of predictable, high‑quality delivery.
• Cross-Functional Coordination & Communication: Ensures clear communication between Product Owners, UX, Development, QA, Architecture, and leadership. Communicates sprint goals, progress, risks, and dependencies to stakeholders. Supports alignment across teams on roadmap priorities, technical constraints, and delivery expectations.
• Metrics, Reporting & Continuous Improvement: Tracks and analyzes sprint metrics such as velocity, burndown, predictability, and story readiness. Provides insights and recommendations to improve team flow, product readiness, and overall delivery health. Facilitates retrospectives and turns improvement items into actionable plans.
• Other duties and projects as assigned.

• Strong understanding of Agile frameworks, with deep practical experience in Scrum.
• Ability to coach both development and product teams in Agile best practices.
• Exceptional facilitation, communication, and conflict‑resolution skills.
• Ability to translate high‑level product goals into clear, actionable team‑level execution plans.
• Skilled in driving alignment across cross‑functional groups.
• Proficiency with Jira or comparable Agile lifecycle management tools.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent priorities with attention to detail and follow‑through.

• Minimum 5 years as a Scrum Master or Agile facilitator in software development environments.
• Experience supporting Product Owners or Business Analysts in refinement and backlog preparation.
• Experience working with onshore and offshore development teams preferred.
• Experience implementing process improvements and best practices within the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
• Experience in dual‑scrum or product discovery/delivery pipeline models preferred.

• Prolonged periods of sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

$ - $

Salary is established based on various factors, including, but not limited to, prior employment history, job‑related knowledge, education and training, skills, and geographic location.