Scrum Master

About the position

Provides servant-leadership and mentorship to one cross-functional agile team through effective application of Agile principles and frameworks including Scrum, Kanban and Extreme Programming (XP). Strengthens understanding of effective practices, theories and techniques to support continuous improvement. Educates and coaches the team to create an environment that fosters self-organization, cross-functionality, collaboration, conflict resolution, transparency and continuous improvement. Visualizes, communicates and radiates team information to keep their work and impediments visible to stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Utilize a broad knowledge base of agile practices including user stories, retrospectives, story mapping, Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD), Test-Driven Development (TDD), continuous integration, pairing, information radiators, etc., to help create high performing teams.
• Encourage a continuous improvement culture for individuals within the team, constantly discovering better ways of working, through transparency, collaboration and retrospectives.
• Facilitate meetings with the team for idea generation, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, backlog refinement, sprint reviews, retrospectives, problem-solving and alignment.
• Help the team gain transparency into their workflow through appropriate use of information radiators.
• Address blocking issues that are beyond the team’s authority, or require support from other teams, so the team remains focused on achieving their goals.
• Work with other Agile leaders to increase the effectiveness of the application of Agile within the organization.
• Seek and host a variety of individual learning opportunities such as communities of practice, conferences, meetups, reading and classroom training.
• Understand and adhere to the Company’s risk and regulatory standards, policies and controls in accordance with the Company’s Risk Appetite.
• Identify risk-related issues needing escalation to management.
• Design, implement, maintain and enhance internal controls to mitigate risk on an ongoing basis.
• Promote an environment that supports diversity and reflects the M&T Bank brand.
• Maintain M&T internal control standards, including timely implementation of internal and external audit points together with any issues raised by external regulators as applicable.
• Complete other related duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 2 years’ experience as a member of an agile team, including a minimum of 1 year’s Scrum Master or related equivalent experience, or in lieu of a degree, a combined minimum of 6 years’ higher education and/or work experience, including a minimum of 2 years’ experience as a member of an agile team, including a minimum of 1 year’s Scrum Master or related equivalent experience.

Nice-to-haves

• Prior experience fostering team self-organization and continuous improvement.
• Knowledge of Agile and Lean principles and practices.
• Experience developing/managing digital capabilities.
• Understanding of Design Thinking principles.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Prior experience leading through influence.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits ranging from medical and retirement to forty hours of paid volunteer time each year.