Sr. Scrum Master

Who We Are

Join a team that puts its People First! As a member of the First American family of companies, First American Trust is a federal savings bank that has provided banking, wealth management, and trust solutions on a national, full-service basis for more than five decades. 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 nine 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.

What We Do

Sr. Scrum Master

Job Summary

First American Trust IT Solutions is seeking a Scrum Master with 3 -5 years’ experience who understands how the Scrum framework can enable agility within an organization and teams, a Scrum Master who is passionate about Agile, possesses an Agile mindset and is interested in helping to transform an organization and its IT Service areas to a new workstyle in partnership with the business with the intent to deliver true value quicker.

Scrum Master, as a Servant-leader will:

• 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 performant 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 evangelizing the 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 grooming, 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

Job Complexities & Impact

• Works on problems of moderate scope where analysis of situations or data requires a review of a variety of factors.
• Exercises judgment within defined procedures and practices to determine appropriate action.
• Follows department processes and procedures and makes recommendations to these processes.
• Errors may cause significant delay of process development or problem resolution.

Supervision Received or Extended

• No responsibility for the supervision of others
• Works independently setting own priorities and objectives. Work is reviewed for soundness of judgment and overall accuracy.

The pay range for this role is $109,700.00 - $146,200.00

This hiring range is a reasonable estimate of the base pay range for this position at the time of posting.  Pay is based on a number of factors which may include job-related knowledge, skills, experience, business requirements and geographic location.

What We Offer

By choice, we don’t simply accept individuality – we embrace it, we support it, and we thrive on it! Our People First Culture celebrates diversity, equity and inclusion not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s the key to our success. We are proud to foster an authentic and inclusive workplace For All. You are free and encouraged to bring your entire, unique self to work. First American is an equal opportunity employer in every sense of the term.

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.