Senior Scrum Master - Agile Delivery Lead

HF; Manchester; Remote; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

HF is seeking a Senior Scrum Master / Agile Delivery Manager to lead a multidisciplinary Agile team delivering change on the Clio Operate platform. This role goes beyond facilitation to real accountability for delivery, managing commitments, risks and blockers with proactive leadership.

You will partner with Product Owners, engineering and QA to align squads with programme goals, run effective ceremonies and PI planning, and drive continuous improvement using data-driven insights.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience as a Scrum Master and/or Delivery Manager in tech environments.
• Strong practical knowledge of Agile and Scrum, ideally SAFe.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams including developers, testers and Product Owners.

Responsibilities

• Take accountability for the team's delivery against Sprint/PI commitments.
• Maintain clear delivery progress, priorities, risks and blockers.
• Identify causes when delivery lags and drive resolution.
• Challenge the team constructively when pace or ownership is lacking.
• Resolve blockers and escalate issues outside the team's control when needed.
• Coordinate with Product Owners, engineering and QA to resolve cross-team dependencies.
• Focus on outcomes and delivery-ready work, not just ceremonies.

Skills

Scrum Master

Delivery Manager

Agile methods

SAFe

Tools

Jira

Job description

Senior Scrum Master - Agile Delivery Manager

Remote

Permanent

About HF

People. Not just lawyers

We're not your typical law firm - we're people with a passion for helping our clients and each other achieve the best possible outcomes. We are leading legal advisers to the insurance and commercial sectors across the UK & Ireland, known for our innovation, client focus, and long-lasting relationships. We do things differently, with a forward-thinking approach built around our clients' needs, supported by cutting-edge technology and a culture built around people from a wide range of backgrounds who are taking an equally wide range of routes to building their careers in law.

We are looking for an experienced and delivery-focused Senior Scrum Master / Agile Delivery Manager to lead a multidisciplinary Agile team delivering change across the Clio Operate platform.

This is not a traditional Scrum Master role focused solely on facilitating Agile ceremonies. We need someone who will take real accountability for delivery, creating an environment where the team can perform effectively while ensuring commitments, risks, dependencies and blockers are actively managed.

You will be expected to understand what the team has committed to, whether delivery is on track and, critically, why it is not progressing when expected. You will challenge constructively, remove obstacles, drive issues through to resolution and esc ... where intervention is required.

The successful candidate will combine strong Scrum Master capabilities with many of the responsibilities of an Agile Delivery Manager, providing the leadership, structure, transparency and momentum needed to help the team consistently get things done.

What you'll be doing

• Take accountability for the team's delivery against agreed Sprint, PI and wider programme commitments.
• Maintain a clear understanding of delivery progress, priorities, dependencies, risks and blockers.
• Identify when delivery is falling behind and proactively establish the underlying cause.
• Constructively challenge the team where progress, ownership or pace is below expectations.
• Drive blockers and impediments through to resolution rather than simply recording or reporting them.
• Escalate issues quickly and appropriately where resolution sits outside the team's control.
• Work closely with Product Owners, engineering, testing, business SMEs and other delivery teams to resolve cross-team dependencies.
• Maintain a strong focus on outcomes and completed work, not simply activity or ceremony.

Agile & Scrum Leadership

• Lead and continuously improve the team's Agile delivery practices.
• Facilitate effective Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, Refinement, Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives.
• Ensure Sprint Goals are meaningful, understood and actively managed throughout the Sprint.
• Lead effective PI Planning and delivery against committed PI Objectives.
• Drive high standards around Definition of Ready, Definition of Done, estimation, capacity planning and backlog readiness.
• Use retrospectives and delivery data to identify improvements and ensure agreed actions translate into measurable change.
• Promote accountability and ownership within the team rather becoming the team's task manager.

Delivery Management

• Maintain a clear delivery plan and understand whether upcoming milestones and commitments
• remain achievable.
• Proactively manage risks, issues, assumptions, dependencies and delivery constraints.
• Coordinate dependencies across teams and workstreams.
• Ensure emerging delivery risks are identified early rather than becoming last-minute surprises.
• Work with the Product Owner to ensure the team has sufficient prioritised, refined and delivery-ready work.
• Balance Agile principles with the practical realities of delivery within a complex enterprise programme.

Metrics, Reporting & Governance

• Own accurate and transparent reporting of team delivery performance.
• Use delivery metrics to understand performance and support evidence-based conclusions.
• Translate detailed delivery information into clear executive messages covering progress, confidence, risks, impact and required decisions.
• Ensure reporting provides an honest view of delivery health rather than simply reporting that activity is taking place.

What do I need?

• Significant experience as a Scrum Master and/or Delivery Manager within technology environments.
• Strong practical knowledge of Scrum, Agile and preferably SAFe.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams including developers, testers, analysts, platform specialists and Product Owners.
• An understanding of software delivery and the SDLC.
• Experience managing delivery risks, dependencies, blockers and competing priorities.
• Strong delivery reporting and analytical capability.
• Experience using Jira or comparable Agile delivery tooling.
• The ability to interpret delivery metrics and turn data into meaningful management insight.
• Experience producing reporting for senior