Scrum Master

Stand Together; Arlington (VA); On-site; USD 105,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) match with vesting

Health plan

Wellness benefits

Flexible time off

Job summary

Stand Together is building an internal Agile practice and seeks a Scrum Master to support multiple teams across varying Agile maturities. You will run ceremonies, maintain a healthy backlog, and foster trust and psychological safety to enable honest retrospectives and meaningful improvements.

You will partner with Product and Engineering Leads, report to the Agile Practice Lead, and contribute to standardized processes, templates, and playbooks that elevate delivery across teams.

Qualifications

• Prior experience as a Scrum Master or Agile delivery lead supporting cross-functional product or technology teams.
• The interpersonal skills to build trust quickly on teams that may be skeptical, fatigued, or in conflict.
• Strong Jira skills: backlog management, workflow configuration, automation, dashboard and reporting development.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate Agile ceremonies: standups, sprint planning, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and reviews with preparation, time-boxing, and outcomes focus.
• Build trust and psychological safety for honest retrospectives and credible improvement actions.
• Shift sprint planning to align in-meeting by doing admin and readiness work, including ticket review and Jira cleanup.
• Maintain backlog health: ensure work is categorized, sized, structured, and ready for commitment.
• Apply and reinforce standardized ticket structures: issue types, field usage, user story and acceptance criteria formats, spike success criteria, bug reproduction steps.
• Track, analyze, and communicate sprint metrics including velocity, rollover trends, and estimated vs actual effort; surface patterns for planning accuracy.
• Facilitate root-cause analysis of blockers and rollover; drive corrective actions.
• Identify and pursue impediments crossing team boundaries; escalate when broader action is needed.
• Contribute to overall delivery standards by sharing what works and building playbooks and templates.

Skills

Scrum Master

Agile delivery

Jira

Facilitation

Cross-functional teams

Tools

Jira

Job description

Stand Together is a philanthropic community that helps America’s boldest changemakers tackle the root causes of our country’sbiggest problems, from education to the economy, broken communities, and toxic division, among dozens of other pressing issues. We provide our partners with access to resources including funding, thought leadership, a network of peers, and a playbook for applying proven principles to transform lives and society.

Stand Together is building an internal Agile practice to sustain meaningful delivery improvements made over the last year. As a Scrum Master embedded across multiple teams, you will be the person those teams rely on to run great ceremonies,maintaina healthy backlog, and create the trust and psychological safety that makes honest retrospectives and real improvement possible.

You will support multiple teams atdifferent stagesof Agile maturity,soyoumust becomfortable adapting your approachwhile striving to execute to aconsistent standard. You willreport tothe Agile Practice Lead, whoestablishesthestandards and frameworks youoperatewithin. You will work closelywith Product and Engineering Leads on each of your teams.

How You Will Contribute

• Facilitate Agile ceremonies:standups, sprint planning, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and reviewswith preparation, cleartime-boxing, anda consistentbias toward outcomes over process.
• Build the trust and psychological safety that makes retrospectives honest and improvement actionscredible.
• Shift sprint planning from in-meeting discovery to in-meeting alignment by doing the administrative and readiness work, includingticket review, agenda setting,andJira cleanup.
• Maintain backlog health: ensure work is properly categorized, sized, structured, and ready for commitment before it enters a sprint.
• Apply and reinforce standardized ticket structures:consistent issue types, field usage,user story and acceptance criteria formats, spike success criteria, bug reproduction steps.
• Track, analyze, and communicate sprint metrics including velocity, rollover trends, and estimated versus actual effort; surface patterns that improve planning accuracy over time.
• Facilitate root-cause analysis of blockers and rollover; ensure carryover discussions result in specific,corrective actions.
• Identifyand actively pursue impediments that cross team boundaries, escalating to the Agile Practice Lead when resolution requires broader organizational action.
• Contribute tooveralldelivery standards by sharing what is working, flagging what is not, and helping build the playbooks and templates thatbenefitall teams.

What You Will Bring

• Prior experience as a Scrum Master or Agile delivery lead supporting cross-functional product or technology teams.
• The interpersonal skills to build trust quickly on teams that may be skeptical, fatigued, or in conflict. You know that facilitation is only as effective as the relationshipsbeneath it.
• Strong Jira skills: backlog management, workflow configuration,automation,dashboard and reporting development, and the discipline to keep data clean and meaningful.
• Comfortoperatingacross multiple teams simultaneously, including managing schedulecomplexity and adapting your approach to teams at different maturity levels.
• A diagnostic mindset: you notice patterns, ask good questions, and distinguish between a team problem, a process problem, and an organizational problem before deciding how to respond.
• Enthusiasm to contribute to StandTogether's vision and principled approach to solving problems, and a commitment to stewarding our culture , which champions values including transformation and innovation, entrepreneurialism, humility, and respect.

Standout Candidates Will Bring

• Experience standing up or scaling Agile practices inmaturingorganizations.
• Experiencesupporting technology, data, or platform teams where delivery involves significant cross-team dependencies and technical complexity.
• Demonstrated ability to create durable templates, guides, and operating standards.
• Experience working within a structured Agile practiceunder apracticelead or within a center of excellence,where craft standards are set at a level above the individual team.

What We Offer

• Competitive benefits: Enjoy a 6% 401(k) match with immediate vesting, flexible time off, comprehensive health and dental plans, plus wellness and mental health support through Peloton and Talkspace
• A meaningful career: Join a passionate community of over 1,300 employees dedicated to improving lives and driving innovative solutions to complex social challenges
• Commitment to growth: Thrive in a non-hierarchical environment that empowers employees to discover, develop and apply their unique talents
• Competitive compensation: Our approach rewards the value you create through competitive salaries and bonus opportunities, allowing you to share in the success you help drive

Our Values:

Working for an organization within the Stand Together philanthropic community is different from many other places. The culture is deeply rooted in Principle Based Management® (PBM®), a framework guided by the principles that drive human progress, such as dignity, openness, and bottom-up empowerment. PBM® empowers employees to be entrepreneurial, to innovate, and to continually drive transformation.

We believe diversity fuels creativity, broadens knowledge, and helps drive success. That is why we’re proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and strive to treat all employees and applicants with honesty, dignity, and respect.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.

For this role, the anticipated base salary range is $105,000–$140,000 per year. This role may also be eligible for additional bonus compensation designed to align total compensation with an employee’s overall contribution to the organization.

Our Principles-Based Management™ (PBM) compensation philosophy is grounded in an individualized approach that rewards the long-term value each person creates for the organization. Compensation decisions are informed by a variety of factors, including relevant experience, capabilities,demonstratedskills, role responsibilities, and expected contribution. Consistent with this approach, base salary may vary within or outside of theanticipatedrange based on these considerations.