Scrum Master
Encino, CA

Job Description

As a virtual insurance agency, Answer Financials success is based on providing an outstanding customer experience and creating an environment for mutually beneficial relationships between insurance distributors and carriers. Rooted in empowerment and accountability, Answer Financial associates are challenged to maximize their own focus, resourcefulness and diversity. Our fast-paced work environment embraces innovative thinking, continuous learning and collaboration. We are a high-performance organization that believes in celebrating our employees efforts with a pay-for-performance approach, a competitive compensation package as well as opportunities for personal and professional growth. At Answer Financial, we understand that when our employees are at their best, so are we. That's why we offer a variety of development and well-being programs to encourage and empower our employees. We are committed to helping each employee work and live to his or her fullest potential.

Within Answer Financial, the eBusiness department defines and develops software solutions in support of the companys mission and strategy. We use an agile software development model to create solutions that include web sites, mobile applications, insurance agency quoting and management systems, insurance product provider integrations, and computer telephony integrations.

We are looking for an open-minded Scrum Master to join our Business Intelligence group.

If you are a gregarious and innovative Scrum Master who is predisposed to action and wants to thrive in a smaller organization where your results are acknowledged, you may be the person were seeking.

Ideal candidates would have:

* Worked in an Agile organization and are ready to bring their experience to Answer Financial
* Experience with Agile product development and Lean startup techniques
* Experience effectively communicating with stakeholders and other teams across the Organization
* Working experience with one or more of Agile Scrum, Kanban, Test Driven Development (TDD), and Extreme Programming best practices
* Demonstrated leadership skills that encourage innovative thinking and team collaboration
* Managed geographically and culturally diverse groups
* A passion for continuous learning keeping abreast of current technologies and implementation practices
* Experience in the personal lines insurance industry
* Experience managing Scrum teams for Data related projects (Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence, Data Integration, etc.)

Essential Job Duties/Responsibilities:

* Facilitate all Scrum ceremonies, cross-department communication, collaboration, and healthy conflict resolution
* Work with geographically diverse development team members (including contract resources)
* Support and refine the Agile transformation within the Business Intelligence group (Help the development teams to organize around the most appropriate framework Scrum)
* Keep abreast of Agile, and software development best practices
* Work with Backlog Product Owners and Implementation Team members to learn and practice healthy backlog grooming and prioritization practices.
* Mentor the BI Teams and their new members on Scrum values, principles, and practices.
* Remove teams impediments and assist with dependency management and cross-team coordination
* Act as a buffer between external distractions and the team
* Facilitate team development, mediate conflicts, protect the team, and encourage healthy team dynamics.
* Foster the team responsibility, accountability, transparency and self-organization.
* Leverage coaching skills to help the team to solve its own problems.
* Introduce and encourage the team to explore healthy Agile development best practices and technical excellence
* Teach and encourage a balanced backlog that delivers valuable features for customers, reduces technical debt, provides business value, and enables product sustainability.
* Develop, capture, and analyze metrics to facilitate team improvements.
* Promote transparency through healthy communications and data integrity.
* Be a servant leader: You receive as much satisfaction from facilitating others success as your own.
* Remove impediments: You do everything in your power to remove obstacles that are preventing the team from accomplishing its Sprint goals.
* Radiate information: You make sure that all information needed to ensure the teams progress and successes are highly visible to all stakeholders, including the team itself (e.g. backlogs, burndown/up charts, etc.)
* Support the Product Owner: You work to assist the Product Owner, through communicating updates and removing impediments, assisting with backlog and release plan maintenance, etc.
* Facilitate creativity and empowerment for the development team: You foster an environment where creativity and empowerment can flourish.
* Improve the teams engineering practices and tools as needed: You make sure teams have the tools and know-how they need to succeed.
* Communicate, communicate, communicate. You ensure that everyonethe Product Owner, the team, and various other stakeholdersare always up-to-speed.

Apart from professional experience, an ideal candidate for this role should be a great leader, listener, supportive, compassionate, courageous, observant, focused, and dedicated to ride alongside the team through the ups and downs.

Required Qualifications:

* 5+ years of Agile Scrum Master experience
* Mastery of Agile Scrum roles, artifacts, and ceremonies
* Ability to instill Scrum values into newly formed teams and to re-educate already established teams
* Working knowledge of JIRA/Confluence
* Working knowledge of Skype and/or other conference tools
* PC proficient
* Successful history of managing the delivery of software development projects
* Experience with Lean Startup, Test Driven Development (TDD), or Extreme Programming best practices is desired
* A keen eye for delivery issues and risks, a sense of urgency for removing blockers and driving continuous improvement
* Understanding healthy team dynamics and knowing how to coach and grow a high-performing team
* Business Intelligence, Analytics, Big Data, Data Science experience a plus
* Strong interpersonal communication skills
* Strong problem-solving and analytical skills

Experience/Education:

* Bachelors Degree (BA or BS) is required
* Scrum Master Certification is required
* Scrum Product Owner Certification is desired

Physical Demands/Work Environment:

* Representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential function of the job. Must be able to operate a PC, other relevant office tools/equipment, sit for extended periods, and/or occasionally stand for extended periods, lead training classes and travel. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

We offer a competitive salary, a comprehensive benefit package which includes day one health benefits, matched 401(k), and paid time off.

Answer Financial is an equal opportunity employer.