Scrum Master

About the Role

A leading Financial Services firm is seeking a dedicated Scrum Master for a long-term contract based in Des Moines, IA. This role spans 24 months with potential for conversion to permanent employment. The Scrum Master will lead Agile teams, facilitating ceremonies, managing risks, and coaching teams to ensure alignment with organizational Agile standards while driving dependable and high-quality delivery outcomes.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct and lead Agile ceremonies to secure clear deliverables and commitments.
• Provide coaching to teams, Product Owners, and Engineering partners on Agile methodologies and behaviors.
• Maintain deep awareness of team backlog, priorities, and the value being delivered.
• Safeguard team focus by managing project scope, dependencies, and unplanned tasks.
• Promote continuous improvement using metrics, retrospective meetings, and dedicated coaching plans.
• Regularly engage with Product and Engineering teams at least monthly to assess team maturity and identify opportunities for enhancement.
• Mediate conflicts efficiently within a sprint using facilitation techniques and ensure all agreed-upon rules are upheld.
• Respond to feedback promptly within 48 hours, seek clarifications as required, and demonstrate professional, calm communication, especially in escalation scenarios.
• Monthly evaluate team maturity and progress via a structured coaching plan with measurable benchmarks.
• Support teams in managing work breakdowns by ensuring every user story complies with Definition of Ready and Definition of Done, minimizing scope creep, and validating acceptance criteria before sprint commitments.
• Deliver targeted real-time coaching to elevate Agile practices, workflow, quality, predictability, and alignment, consequently improving key Agile and software delivery metrics.
• Identify, monitor, and coordinate cross-team dependencies proactively to surface risks early and collaborate with stakeholders and delivery partners to resolve them.
• Address impediments within 24 hours, maintain an impediment backlog in Jira, and drive timely resolutions to prevent delays.
• Maintain expert-level knowledge of Jira by designing dashboards and automations that visualize team performance trends such as cycle time, throughput, work-in-progress, and rollover.

Required Skills and Experience

• Advanced expertise in Jira, including dashboard creation to analyze team performance metrics.
• Demonstrated experience with Scrum and Kanban teams; specific experience coaching Kanban workflows.
• Proven ability to manage Kanban boards effectively.