Remote Sr. Scrum Master

Company Summary

Come join First American's Digital Title Group, newly formed to re-imagine and digitize the title search and examination process through Big Data, AI, document automation and modern, cloud-native application development. As a market leading title insurance company, powered by the nation's largest and most complete property information, ownership and recorded document database, First American is committed to advancing title automation and removing friction from the real estate closing process. Our modern title decisioning solutions create certainty and speed through data and analytics, delivered to real estate agents, lenders, title agents and homebuyers. Join a team that puts its People First! Since 1889, First American (NYSE: FAF) has held an unwavering belief in its people. They are passionate about what they do, and we are equally passionate about fostering an environment where all feel welcome, supported, and empowered to be innovative and reach their full potential. Our inclusive, people-first culture has earned our company numerous accolades, including being named to the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For® list for seven consecutive years. We have also earned awards as a best place to work for women, diversity and LGBTQ+ employees, and have been included on more than 50 regional best places to work lists. First American will always strive to be a great place to work, for all. For more information, please visit www.careers.firstam.com.

Job Summary

The Sr. Scrum Master will be responsible for leading Agile teams and working closely with the business portfolio directors and release train leads to monitor and drive effective execution, eliminate barriers, and enable our teams to deliver on their commitments. You’re a motivated, self-starter who can power through ambiguity and work independently to achieve results. You’re a collaborative team player who rolls up their sleeves, responds quickly and decisively, is flexible and open to change, and can productively work with the team to achieve company objectives. 

Sr. Scrum Master, as a Servant-leaderwill:

• Effectively facilitate and lead Agile events/ceremonies with the goal of delivering business value and fostering continuous improvement amongst the team and the organization

• Identify, track and help to remove impediments that interfere with team's ability to deliver on the sprint goal

• Provide team with resources, information, communication, and practical advice to enable the team to predictably deliver working software and the desired capabilities

• Empower teams and facilitate creativity while guarding WIP, quality and monitoring progress

• Build a safe and trusting team environment where failure and problems can happen without fear of blame, retribution, or judgement but, with an emphasis on problem solving and learning from failure

Job Responsibilities

• Enforce the values and principles of Agile by focusing on continuous learning and feedback loops

• Direct and assist the team in updating the tracking systems to provide transparency on Product & Sprint Backlogs

• Develop, gather and publish Agile/DevOps metrics on areas that affect value-driven delivery, indicate potential problems and measure a Team’s success

• Provide performance feedback to management and team members

Assist and support the Product Owner and Team:

• Ensuring the product backlog is properly refined - prioritizing to maximize value and using creative techniques for elaborating user stories to be ready for the upcoming 1-2 sprints

• Continually coach and work with the team with a focus of improving the business value delivered

• Aid in managing the Backlogs and Release Planning

• Utilize metrics for initiating continuous improvement and the development of high performance teams

• Understanding and able to articulate strategic and product plan goals and progress towards them

• Disseminate relevant information to the team, stakeholders, leadership and the Programs as needed

Support the organization's Agile journey with a focus on promoting, educating, and evangelizingthe Agile mindset:

• Guide the organization on Agile, its values and benefits and how best to use Agile/Scrum practices

• Work with one or more scrum teams to continually coach/educate and promote Agile practices

• Foster and encourage conversations and collaboration amongst scrum team(s), Product Owner(s), practice areas and potentially Project Managers on the efficient delivery of product increments through self-organized teams

Knowledge, Experience & Qualifications

• Possessing a proven track record as an experienced Scrum Master for IT teams, apply Scrum principles, practices, and theory in a product centric organization

• Demonstrated advanced experience with Scrum practices: backlog refinement, daily standups, sprint review, retrospectives, sprint planning

• Knowledge of other Agile methodologies (XP, Kanban, Lean) and familiarity with Scaled Agile (SAFe)

• Knowledge and/or experience with Agile/DevOps techniques: User Stories, TDD, Automated Testing, Continuous Integration, Pairing, Agile Games

• Extensive knowledge and experience with agile team tools such as JIRA, Trello, or Azure DevOps

Candidate must possess:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Information Technology, or related fields

• Industry Certification: Certified Scrum Master (CSM), SAFe Scrum Master (SSM) or Professional Scrum Master (PSM)

• Ability to mentor, collaborate and exercise influence without authority

• Excellent communication, facilitation, and coaching skills

• Good skills in servant leadership, facilitation, conflict resolution, continual improvement practices

• Participation, even leadership in Agile Communities of Practice (CoP) is desired

• Senior level equivalent expertise in any technical discipline is desired

• Experience within a multi-team organization is desired

#LI-EL1

First American invests in its employees' development and well-being, empowers them to provide superior customer service and encourages them to serve the communities where they live and work. First American is committed to diversity and inclusion. We are an equal opportunity employer.

Based on eligibility, First American offers a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental, vision, 401k, PTO/paid sick leave and other great benefits like an employee stock purchase plan.