Job Description - Agile Coach/RTE
Milestone is seeking an experienced RTE coming from an enterprise environment to support a large enterprise program. Requires a Certified SAFe RTE, with excellent executive level communication skills. Consultant will need hands‑on experience runningtrains and performed Program Incremental (PI) Planning and provide ad hoc project management work.
Must Haves
- SAFe RTE Certification
- Facilitated and completed Program Incremental (PI) Planning and budgeting.
- Run trains (3-5 years).
- Experience working with various Product Owners (PO)
- Execute, facilitate all the ceremonies, and keep everyone on the train.
- Excellent written and verbal executive level communication skills
Soft Skills
- Servant leader mindset - to share best practices
- Work with a very broad set of stakeholders
- Standing up varying teams, to work with differing experiences
- Bring together a team of teams for a couple of qtrs., then they are repurposed for another set of teams
- Strong communicator
- Active Listener
- Team Player
- Confident
Tools
- Jira; (Jira Align)
- MS Teams
- Miro
- Quip
- Smartsheet
Role is 100% remote supporting PST
Job Summary
The Release Train Engineer (RTE) is a servant leader and coach for the Agile Release Train (ART). The RTE facilitates ART events and processes, assists teams in delivering value, and ensures alignment with Lean-Agile principles. The RTE plays a critical role in driving collaboration, removing impediments, and continuously improving processes to enable high-quality, on-time delivery of features.
Key Responsibilities
1. Facilitation and Coordination
- Facilitate Program Increment (PI) Planning, ART syncs, retrospectives, and system demos.
- Coordinate cross-team dependencies to ensure alignment and smooth delivery.
- Act as a communication bridge between stakeholders, Product Management, and Agile Teams.
2. Agile Leadership
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement by identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for optimization.
- Support Scaled Agile transformation by mentoring teams and individuals.
- Drive adherence to SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) practices and principles.
3. Program Execution
- Track and report ART progress, risks, and issues, typically using tools like Jira or ADO.
- Escalate and resolve impediments, working with stakeholders to remove obstacles.
- Ensure deliverables align with business goals and timelines.
4. Stakeholder Collaboration
- Partner with Product Management, Product Owners, and System Architects to maintain a cohesive roadmap.
- Collaborate with Scrum Masters, Team Leads, and other RTEs to ensure coordination across ARTs.
- Communicate status, risks, and dependencies to senior leadership and stakeholders.
5. Metrics and Reporting
- Monitor ART performance using metrics like velocity, predictability, and delivery lead time.
- Ensure teams are effectively estimating, planning, and meeting PI objectives.
Qualifications
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Business, or related field.
- 7+ years of experience in Agile, Scrum, or SAFe roles (e.g., Scrum Master, Agile Coach, or Program Manager).
- Certified SAFe® Release Train Engineer (RTE) preferred.
Skills and Competencies:
- Deep understanding of SAFe, Agile frameworks.
- Proven ability to lead large-scale, cross-functional, geographically distributed, Agile teams.
- Strong facilitation, conflict resolution, and negotiation skills.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities.
- Experience with Agile tools (JIRA, ADO).