Agile Coach

Julian Hodge Bank Limited; Cardiff; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

Julian Hodge Bank Limited is seeking an Agile Coach to guide the bank's journey toward high-performing, empowered, self-organising squads. The role focuses on embedding TOM-aligned behaviours, decision-making patterns, and operating practices across squads and leadership, while ensuring regulatory alignment and value delivery.

The successful candidate will mentor, facilitate, and drive organisational change, using agile methods to improve flow, collaboration, and outcomes in a regulated

Qualifications

• Deep practical knowledge of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, Lean) and scaling practices.
• Experience with change-readiness assessment, training design, and adoption planning.
• Coaching multiple agile teams in financial services or regulated domains.
• Comfort coaching in regulated environments with governance, risk management, auditability, and traceability.
• Expertise facilitating retrospectives, workshops, planning sessions, and conflict resolution.
• Experience guiding organisational change and embedding new operating models.
• Advanced facilitation, coaching, negotiation, and communication skills.
• Ability to influence without authority and bridge squads and executives.
• Driving behavioural change, empowering teams while ensuring compliance and quality.

Responsibilities

• Coach leaders in servant leadership, empowerment, decision-rights clarity, and psychological safety.
• Provide one-on-one leadership coaching to embed agile mindsets at senior levels.
• Facilitate alignment workshops across Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Tech Leads, and stakeholders.
• Support teams adopting agile frameworks and role expectations.
• Develop and execute change adoption plans including communications, training, reinforcement mechanisms, and change-readiness assessment.
• Guide teams and leaders through transformation aligned with enterprise Agile change-management expectations.
• Align governance structures to agile delivery cadence while preserving auditability and risk.
• Support agile ceremonies and cross-team cadences.
• Facilitate effective retrospectives across squads, fostering continuous learning and operational excellence.
• Track delivery metrics to support empirical improvement (cycle time, lead time, DORA).
• Surface and resolve cross-functional friction between technology, risk, compliance, and business.

Skills

Scrum

Kanban

SAFe

Lean

Coaching

Change management

Facilitation

Negotiation

Communication

Regulated environments

Job description

Do you want to be part of a force for good, helping to make life better for customers and society in the moments that matter? At Hodge, we put people at the heart of our business, and that means our customers, colleagues and communities. Hodge is a Welsh financial services provider focused on real estate finance and specialist residential mortgage markets.

The Agile Coach is a change and people-focused leader responsible for embedding Target Operating Model (TOM) aligned behaviours, decision‑making patterns, and operating practices across squads, stakeholders, and leadership.

The role acts as a mentor, facilitator, and organisational change agent, guiding the bank's transition toward high-performing, empowered, self-organising squads while ensuring alignment with regulatory obligations, business priorities, and agile delivery standards. This purpose aligns as change leaders who guide teams, leadership, and organisations in adopting Agile ways of working to improve flow, collaboration, and value delivery.

Essential Experience

• Deep practical knowledge of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, Lean), ceremonies, and scaling practices.


• Strong background in change‑readiness assessment, training design, and adoption planning.


• Demonstrated experience coaching multiple agile teams or squads, ideally within financial services or other regulated domains.


• Comfort coaching teams within regulated environments requiring governance, risk management, auditability, and traceability.


• Expertise facilitating retrospectives, workshops, planning sessions, and conflict resolution.


• Experience guiding organisational change, coaching leaders, and embedding new operating models.


• Advanced facilitation, coaching, negotiation and communication skills.


• Ability to influence without authority, build trust quickly, and act as a bridge between squads and executives.


• Skilled at driving behavioural change, fostering team empowerment, and help teams meet compliance and quality requirements while maintaining agility.

Key Responsibilities will include

• Coach leaders and stakeholders in servant leadership, empowerment, decision‑rights clarity, and psychological safety.


• Provide one‑on‑one leadership coaching to embed agile mindsets at senior levels, mirroring enterprise‑level coaching expectations.


• Facilitate alignment workshops to clarify responsibilities across Product Owners, Scrum Masters, Tech Leads, and business stakeholders, ensuring clear interfaces and operating boundaries.


• Support teams in adopting agile frameworks and role expectations as seen in industry job descriptions (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.).


• Develop and execute change adoption plans, including communications, training, reinforcement mechanisms, and change‑readiness assessment.


• Guide teams and leaders through transformation, consistent with enterprise Agile change‑management expectations.


• Align existing governance structures, forums, artefacts, and decision points to the bank's agile delivery cadence; ensuring regulated‑environment obligations (auditability, traceability, risk) preserved.


• Support agile ceremonies and cross‑team cadences similar to those defined in multi‑squad agile roles.


• Facilitate effective retrospectives across squads, fostering continuous learning and operational excellence.


• Track and analyse delivery metrics to support empirical improvement (e.g., cycle time, lead time, DORA metrics).


• Act as a neutral facilitator to surface and resolve cross‑functional friction, improving collaboration between technology, risk, compliance, and business teams.

Please be aware that should we pursue your application, all our Financial Services employees will be expected to complete background checks to assess suitability for employment, these include; a criminal record, identity, media, sanctions, adverse finance, fraud prevention and reference checks to comply with our regulatory requirements.

Hodge is an advocate of being an equal opportunities employer, We believe in promoting equality and diversity which is central to our lives today. We welcome applications from all sections of the community and recognises the value a diverse workforce brings to an organisation.

ESG and sustainability are at the heart of everything we do and serves as a reminder of the responsibility we have to our stakeholders, customers, colleagues and the communities we operate in to use our position wisely. We're currently exploring different certifications available and have done an initial review of how we think we'd fare, as we see this as a real opportunity for Hodge given our social purpose.