Lead Technical Program Manager - Scrum Master

Mastercard; Harrogate; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global technology company in Harrogate is looking for a Lead Technical Program Manager (Scrum Master) to facilitate Agile teams. The ideal candidate will foster improvement, coach teams, and optimize processes, ensuring delivery aligns with customer needs. Previous experience in Agile methodologies along with strong communication and problem-solving skills are essential for this role. The company offers an inclusive environment focused on innovation and efficiency.

Benefits

Competitive salary

Career development opportunities

Flexible working environment

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach.
• Strong understanding of Agile methodologies and practices.
• Excellent communication and conflict resolution skills.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate Agile rituals and practices to ensure adherence.
• Coach teams to improve their performance and self-organization.
• Collaborate with Product Management to align on product delivery.

Skills

Lean and Agile principles and practices

Scrum artefacts and techniques

Problem-Solving

Empathy and Emotional Intelligence

Coaching

Communication skills

Job description

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

Title and Summary

Lead Technical Program Manager - Scrum Master

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.

Our decency quotient, or DQ, drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Overview

Vocalink, a Mastercard company, technologies power the UK’s real-time payments, settlements and direct debit systems, as well as a network of nearly 55,000 UK ATMs. We process over 90 percent of salaries, more than 70 percent of household bills and almost all state benefits.

Are you a leader, influencer and innovator? Do you want to be part of an agile software development, collaborative environment? Are you motivated to be a part of software engineering team who supports UK direct debit systems? Do you love to solve problems and find creative solutions?

Role of the Lead Technical Program Manager (Scrum Master/Team Coach) L6

Vocalink are looking for an experienced Scrum Master/Team Coach who will be a key member of one or more Agile Teams to assist in meeting their delivery goals and is responsible to facilitate and ensure that the Lean and Agile principles and values are being followed within the team for improved speed and quality delivery.

• Lean and Agile principles and practices (Intermediate)
• Scrum artefacts and techniques (Intermediate)
• Understanding of agile practices at scale (Intermediate)
• Understanding of XP practices (Intermediate)
• Facilitation
• Conflict Navigation
• Problem-Solving
• Communications
• Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
• Coaching
• Mentoring

Technical Skills:

• Facilitating PI Planning: Support the RTE and Agile Teams by coordinating and participating in Agile Release Train (ART) events during PI Planning to draft PI plans for the PI’s iterations, listing PI objectives and identifying ART risks and issues.
• Support iteration execution: Support and facilitate the team events (planning, review, and reflection and refinement) on their work and processes to help the team increase its effectiveness to deliver value.
• Coach Agile Team members to self-organise and self-manage in Scrum, Kanban, and quality practices and processes to help identify and eliminate flow bottlenecks.
• Work closely with Product Management and other product owners, Agile Teams, and stakeholders to deliver high-quality products that meet customer needs.

Improving Flow

• Set up the digital tools, providing visual radiators to create transparency and collaboration.
• Measure and optimise flow of value by helping the team to establish metrics to assess and improve their performance.
• Assist the team by coaching Built-in Quality practices to enable fast, reliable execution and ensures that teams perform necessary improvements regularly and efficiently.

Building high performing teams

• Coach with powerful questions to uncover what’s essential, recognising that you do not have all the answers buy can guide others to use their knowledge and expertise.
• Mentor the Agile Teams to foster a high-performance environment of continuous flow and relentless improvement and create an atmosphere of mutual respect.
• Model the behaviours of leading by example.
• Work with Agile Team members and their functional managers to help them develop ‘T-shaped’ skills to enable efficiencies.

Improve ART performance

• Facilitate cross-team collaboration to create an environment where collaboration thrives, and practices support opportunities for Agile Teams to work together.
• Represent the Agile Teams in the Coach Sync, PO Sync, and ART Syncs.
• Participate in the ART’s System Demos and I&A events.
• Help prepare the Agile Team for the I&A event by understanding the performance metrics and identify impediments that cannot be resolved by the Agile Team.

Experiences

• Communication skills to be able to ability to convey ideas, expectations and feedback.
• Be an active listener to understand team’s concerns and stakeholders needs.
• Coaching and mentoring to support through influence (rather than command and control) to empower the team rather than dictating tasks.
• Empathy to understand the Agile Team members’ challenges and have genuine concern for their beliefs and feelings by creating a psychologically safe environment for open discussions.
• Conflict navigation to mediate and resolve interpersonal conflicts, problem-solving, and decision-making to foster healthy team dynamics. Moving from conflict to constructive disagreements.

Corporate Security Responsibility

Every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security. All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and therefore, it is expected that the successful candidate for this position must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices.
• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed.
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.