Scrum Master (Application Development)

Ontrac Solutions LLC.; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Ontrac Solutions LLC is seeking a seasoned Scrum Master to serve as the agile facilitator for a Google Cloud Platform application project. You will own outcomes, drive predictable delivery, and coach the team in Scrum and lean practices.

Remote United States work, collaboration with Product Owner, UX, engineers, and architects, and responsibility for removing impediments, guiding ceremonies, and improving team health and velocity.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a related field.
• 5+ years in a technical/engineering/software development environment.
• 3+ years as a Scrum Master or Agile delivery lead.
• 3+ years IT consulting or professional services in a client-facing role.
• CSM, PSM, or SAFe Scrum Master certification.
• Hands-on participation in at least two SAFe projects including PI Planning.
• Experience turning requirements into shippable increments with UX/design/engineering.
• Experience with Jira and Confluence.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate Scrum ceremonies; time-boxed, valuable, and measurable.
• Coach the team, PO, and stakeholders on Agile principles and Scrum.
• Remove blockers; escalate within 24 hours when unresolved.
• Track velocity, capacity, and team health; monitor flow metrics.
• Participate in SAFe events; manage dependencies across teams.
• Assist PO in maintaining refined backlog with ready stories.
• Engage with client stakeholders; report sprint progress and Agile maturity.
• Maintain RAID logs and quantify risks/scope changes.
• Maintain Jira/Confluence docs; publish reusable Agile assets.
• Define success measures with PO and sponsor; track value vs output.
• Provide probabilistic delivery forecasts and adjust each sprint.
• Improve delivery practices with architects/engineers.
• Mentor junior Scrum Masters and share lessons.

Skills

Scrum Master experience

Agile coaching

Stakeholder communication

Problem solving

Mentorship

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Tools

Jira

Confluence

GCP

Job description

OVERVIEW

OnTrac is seeking a Scrum Master to serve as the dedicated Agile facilitator and servant leader for a Google Cloud Platform application development engagement. You own the outcome, not just the process: predictable delivery, team health, and client confidence are results you are accountable for. Working closely with the Product Owner, UX team, engineers, and architects, you will make sure the team follows Scrum practices and delivers high-quality software predictably.

This is a high-bar role for a proven practitioner. You will facilitate all Scrum ceremonies, remove impediments, coach the team on Agile methodologies, and handle team dynamics with minimal oversight, acting as a trusted advisor to client leaders while continuing to grow toward senior leadership.

The ideal candidate is organized, empathetic, analytical, client-minded, and accountable. You structure ambiguous problems, form and test hypotheses, and lead with the answer. You take full ownership, **escalate** early with a recommendation attached, and never wait to be asked. You deliver results, communicate with confidence, and keep raising your own standard.

ENGAGEMENT

• Expected start date: as soon as possible
• Location: United States only, fully remote
• You must be located in, and authorized to work in, the United States for the full duration of the engagement

PRIMARY DUTIES

These duties are representative rather than exhaustive.

• Scrum Ceremonies Facilitation: Facilitate Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Retrospectives, keeping ceremonies time-boxed, engaging, and valuable. Design each ceremony around a clear purpose and decision, measure its value, and retire or redesign any ceremony that does not earn its time.
• Agile Coaching: Coach the development team, Product Owner, and stakeholders on Agile principles, Scrum frameworks, and best practices. Baseline team and organizational Agile maturity at the start of the engagement, set improvement targets, and report progress against them.
• Impediment Removal: Proactively identify and remove blockers, surface conflicts early, and foster a culture of problem-solving. Own every impediment to closure, track time-to-resolve, and **escalate** within 24 hours when it cannot be resolved at team level, with options and a recommended path.
• Team Health and Velocity: Track team velocity, capacity, and overall health to drive continuous improvement and predictable delivery. Go beyond velocity by tracking flow metrics (cycle time, throughput, work in progress, and aging items) and team health indicators, and act on the trends before they become problems.
• SAFe Participation: Contribute to PI Planning, iteration planning, System Demos, and Inspect and Adapt. Help manage dependencies across teams within the Agile Release Train. Prepare teams for PI Planning with a refined, sized, and dependency‑mapped backlog, and run a visible dependency plan that gives the Release Train Engineer no surprises.
• Product Owner Collaboration: Support the Product Owner in maintaining and continuously refining the backlog, ensuring stories have clear acceptance criteria and meet the Definition of Ready. Coach the Product Owner to prioritize by business value and outcome, and keep at least two sprints of ready work in the backlog at all times.
• Client Engagement: Support demos and working sessions, build trusted relationships with client stakeholders, and communicate sprint progress and Agile maturity clearly. Hold regular one‑to‑one touch points with client sponsors, anticipate their questions, and bring a point of view on delivery risk, pace, and trade‑offs.
• Metrics and Reporting: Track sprint progress, burn‑down/burn‑up charts, and backlog health, and report clearly to stakeholders and the PMO. Produce a concise one‑page delivery summary each sprint that leads with the headline, shows status against plan, and states the decisions required from stakeholders.
• Scope and Risk Visibility: Maintain risk, assumption, issue, and dependency (RAID) logs, escalating to the PMO and Project Manager when needed. Track potential scope changes through Agile tracking tools. Quantify the schedule and budget impact of each risk and scope change, and partner with the Project Manager on mitigation before the client raises the question.
• Documentation and Practice Contribution: Maintain clear documentation and boards in Jira and Confluence, and contribute reusable Agile assets and ideas to the PMO Center of Excellence. Publish at least one reusable asset or practice improvement each quarter, and keep boards accurate enough that any stakeholder can self‑serve status without asking.
• Outcome and Value Ownership: Define success measures with the Product Owner and client sponsor at the start of the engagement. Track delivered value alongside delivered output, and challenge the team when activity is not translating into outcomes.
• Forecasting and Predictability: Provide probabilistic delivery forecasts using historical throughput and cycle time, state the confidence level, and update the forecast every sprint. Flag deviations from plan early with a recovery option.
• Engineering Enablement: Partner with architects and engineers to improve delivery practices on Google Cloud, including CI/CD, automated testing, and release cadence. Track delivery performance indicators such as deployment frequency and lead time for changes.
• Mentorship and Leadership: Mentor junior Scrum Masters and Agile practitioners, share lessons across engagements, and help shape the program's Agile delivery standards.

PATHWAY TO SUCCESS

Be prepared, work with intentional effort, and offer no surprises for our clients and teammates. Anticipate the next question, the next risk, and the next decision before others do.

Your success starts with shaping the direction of a fast‑growing practice. You will be measured quarterly on the breadth, magnitude, and quality of your contributions, team health, sprint delivery predictability, estimate and forecast accuracy, customer feedback at project close, mentorship of others, and the consultative polish you bring to interactions.

Measures are set with the PMO for each engagement and typically include:

• Sprint predictability: Consistently meeting sprint goals, with the variance between committed and delivered work trending down.
• Forecast accuracy: Release and milestone forecasts that land within an agreed tolerance of actual results.
• Zero‑surprise escalation: Risks and impediments raised early, with options, rather than discovered by the client.
• Client confidence: Strong client satisfaction scores and positive feedback from sponsors at project close.
• Team health: Stable or improving team health and engagement trends across the engagement.

As you succeed, we will build a customized development plan with you that follows either the individual contributor or the management track.

EXPECTATIONS

• Customer Facing: You will be a primary voice to the client on Agile delivery, with touch points ranging from daily to bi‑weekly, including PI Planning, sprint reviews, steering committees, and Agile workshops. You will present confidently to senior stakeholders and shape client decisions with clear, evidence‑based recommendations.
• Consulting Environment: You will work in a billable, project‑based model, balancing client outcomes with schedule and utilization targets, and you may support more than one engagement. You will manage your time and priorities across engagements without needing direction, and flag capacity concerns early.
• Servant Leadership: You will champion the Scrum team, fostering self‑organization, accountability, and cross‑functional collaboration. You will hold the team and yourself to a high standard, with candid and constructive feedback.
• Ownership Mindset: You treat the engagement as your own. When something is unclear, broken, or at risk, you take the first step to fix it and keep the right people informed.
• Onboarding and Training: The first several weeks are dedicated to learning, including materials, assignments, compliance training, and meetings with the people you will work with. By day 30 you will deliver a baseline assessment of team health, delivery flow, and risks, and by day 90 an agreed improvement plan with measurable targets.

REQUIRED CREDENTIALS

• Bachelor's degree in a related field. An advanced degree is a plus.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• At least five years of experience in a technical, engineering, or software development environment.
• At least three years as a Scrum Master or Agile delivery lead, facilitating all Scrum ceremonies for one or more application development teams.
• At least three years of IT consulting or professional services experience in a client‑facing role.
• CSM, PSM, or SAFe Scrum Master certification.
• Hands‑on participation in at least two SAFe projects or Agile Release Trains, including PI Planning.
• Experience supporting UX, design, and engineering teams to turn requirements into shippable increments.
• Strong capability with backlog management tools, specifically Jira and Confluence.
• Experience tracking team metrics (velocity, capacity, burn‑down) and providing status reports.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including with senior stakeholders.
• Strong organizational, analytical, problem‑solving, and conflict‑resolution skills.
• A positive attitude toward change and the ability to adapt in a fast‑paced environment.
• A love for cloud computing and modern application development.
• Demonstrated ownership: examples of taking accountability for a delivery outcome, recovering a struggling project, or escalating a risk early that protected the client.

USEFUL QUALIFICATIONS

• Advanced Agile certifications (A‑CSM, PSM II, PMI‑ACP, or equivalent).
• Experience with GCP or other public cloud application development projects.
• Consulting experience at a cloud partner, systems integrator, or advisory firm.
• Exposure to pre‑sales, solution scoping, or Agile transformation initiatives.
• Familiarity with DevOps practices and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience in the government sector.
• Experience with distributed and offshore teams.
• Experience with probabilistic forecasting, Agile maturity assessments, or coaching Product Owners and client executives.