Sr Scrum Master

Description:

We are seeking a highly motivated, hands-on, and detail-oriented Scrum Master to join our dynamic Agile team at Citi, serving two dedicated Scrum development teams, each comprising of 8 engineers. In this critical role, you will be a proactive force, driving both team efficiency and value delivery. You will immerse yourself in understanding product intricacies and technical challenges, becoming a knowledge expert to guide your teams effectively. Building strong relationships with both your teams and their diverse stakeholders is paramount, enabling you to proactively resolve and escalate impediments that hinder progress. Your primary focus will be on maximizing value delivery and optimizing team performance through the strategic use of metrics and a relentless pursuit of continuous improvement, all while ensuring alignment with Citis strategic goals.

Key Responsibilities:

• Championing Team-Level Value Delivery: The Scrum Master works hands-on with Product Owners, business stakeholders, and both assigned development teams to deeply understand the "why" behind each sprints goals. This role requires becoming a knowledge expert on the product and technical challenges to proactively guide team efforts towards maximizing and delivering measurable business value within each sprint and achieving strategic objectives for both teams.
• Proactive Technical and Dependency Management for Sprint Success: This role involves hands-on engagement with both teams to thoroughly understand complex technical requirements, architectural implications, and cross-team dependencies. The Scrum Master meticulously identifies, tracks, and proactively resolves and escalates technical risks and impediments, including actively coordinating with other teams and participating in cross-team synchronization forums (e.g., Scrum of Scrums) to manage inter-team workflows and shared objectives, ensuring smooth, predictable delivery and maintaining system integrity within the context of each sprint across both teams.
• Organized Sprint Planning and Execution Efficiency: The Scrum Master applies agile principles with an organized, detail-oriented approach to meticulously plan, facilitate, and coordinate progress across both assigned teams. This includes expertly guiding sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and sprint reviews, identifying potential risks, proactively escalating issues, and optimizing resource allocation to enhance overall team efficiency and maintain flexibility in adapting to changing priorities within each sprint.
• Driving Data-Driven Continuous Improvement within Sprints: This position proactively leads and fosters a culture of continuous improvement within both teams. The Scrum Master facilitates regular sprint retrospectives, implements data-driven process refinements, promotes experimentation, and leverages metrics and team feedback to relentlessly enhance efficiency, quality, and delivery velocity of sprint deliverables.
• Building Strong Stakeholder Relationships and Sprint Alignment: The Scrum Master is responsible for proactively building strong, collaborative relationships and engaging with diverse stakeholder groups, including business, product, and engineering leadership. This involves transparent communication, negotiation, and proactive conflict resolution to ensure clear alignment on expectations, sprint scope, timelines, and strategic direction for both teams.
• Reporting on Sprint Performance and Driving Insights: The Scrum Master collects, analyzes, and presents relevant team performance metrics (e.g., lead time, cycle time, defect density, forecast accuracy) at the sprint level. This provides transparent, data-driven insights to stakeholders, identify trends, and informs strategic decisions regarding sprint delivery, team health, and opportunities for continuous improvement and efficiency gains.

Requirements:

• Minimum of 5 years of experience as a Scrum Master in a large-scale enterprise environment, preferably within the financial services industry.
• Demonstrated experience effectively serving at least two agile teams concurrently, fostering their productivity and delivery.
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM) or equivalent Agile certification required
• Bachelors degree in computer science, Information Systems, Business Administration, or related field.
• Proven track record of successfully cultivating and strengthening an agile mindset and improving the implementation of Scrum principles and practices within development teams, directly resulting in enhanced team collaboration, self-organization, efficient iterative value delivery, and continuous learning
• Strong leadership and communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively with stakeholders at all levels of the organization.
• Extensive hands-on experience with JIRA administration, JIRA Configuration, Reporting, and Dashboard, including advanced features like JIRA Rich filters and Smart Dashboards, specifically for tracking, analyzing, and presenting team-level performance and progress.

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced Agile certifications such as Certified Scrum Professional (CSP), SAFe Agilist (SA), or PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP).
• Experience with scaling Agile frameworks (e.g., SAFe, LeSS) in a large organizational setting.
• Knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, including continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).

Familiarity with financial services regulations and compliance requirements