Scrum Master & QA Engineer

The Concord Consortium; Concord (MA); Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Four weeks vacation

Medical and dental insurance

Generous retirement plan

Life and disability insurance

Job summary

The Concord Consortium, an EdTech nonprofit focused on transforming STEM education through technology, seeks a Scrum Master & QA Engineer to help our software teams move research‑based K‑12 education technology from idea to classroom. This hybrid, mission‑driven role combines process facilitation with hands‑on quality engineering to ship reliable, high‑quality products.

You’ll work with a small team of engineers, researchers, and product owners, shaping testing strategies, monitoring, and

Qualifications

• 2+ years as Scrum Master / Agile facilitator with hands-on QA, testing, and DevOps
• Working knowledge of Jira or willingness to become Jira expert
• Comfort with AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) to speed work
• Ability to manage multiple projects with different stakeholders
• Strong technical judgment for trade-offs, risk and feasibility
• Excellent written and verbal communication across technical/non-technical
• Genuine passion for quality, attention to detail, and follow-through
• Bachelor’s degree in CS/engineering or related field, or equivalent experience

Responsibilities

• Facilitate Scrum ceremonies across one or more product teams
• Coach engineers, researchers, and product owners on Agile practices
• Maintain a healthy backlog in Jira with epics and stories
• Identify and remove roadblocks; negotiate scope/schedule with stakeholders
• Track and communicate status, risks, and milestones to stakeholders
• Ensure shared understanding of project scope and goals
• Own and evolve testing practices; automate tests and coordinate manual testing
• Monitor deployed applications and respond quickly when issues arise
• Promote a quality mindset so everyone owns quality

Skills

Agile facilitation

QA mindset

Communication

Multitask management

Technical conversations

Education/edtech interest

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/engineering or related field

Tools

Jira

Playwright

Cypress

pytest

Google Analytics

Slack

Google Workspace

GitHub

Job description

Are you an experienced Scrum Master or Agile practitioner who’s also comfortable getting hands‑on with quality assurance and release pipelines? Do you want your day‑to‑day work to make a difference — moving research‑based K‑12 STEM education technology from idea to classroom? The Concord Consortium, an EdTech nonprofit R&D and product support organization dedicated to transforming STEM education through technology, is looking for a Scrum Master & QA Engineer to help our software teams work well together and ship reliable, high‑quality products.

This is a hybrid role by design. We’re a small, mission‑driven team, and we’ve found that the person who keeps the team’s process healthy is often best positioned to also help keep the product healthy — through testing, monitoring, and integration of features with our public‑facing publishing. If you like variety, and you want your process skills and your technical skills to reinforce each other rather than live in separate silos, this role is built for you.

In this position, you will:

Agile & Scrum Facilitation (approximately 50%)

• Facilitate Scrum ceremonies (standups, sprint planning, retros, backlog refinement) across one or more product teams, keeping them focused and useful
• Coach engineers, researchers, and product owners on Agile practices, and help the team continuously improve how it works
• Maintain a healthy, well‑groomed backlog in Jira — clear epics, well‑written stories, useful acceptance criteria
• Identify and remove roadblocks; negotiate scope and schedule trade‑offs with stakeholders
• Track and communicate status, risks, and milestones to internal and external stakeholders
• Ensure shared understanding of project scope and goals, and manage changes to that scope clearly

Quality Engineering & QA (approximately 50%)

• Own and evolve our testing practices — writing and maintaining automated test suites, coordinating manual/exploratory testing, and helping engineers build testability into their code from the start
• Monitor deployed applications, track usage logs, and help the team respond quickly when something breaks
• Bring a quality mindset to the whole team, helping “everyone owns quality” be true in practice

To accomplish this, you’ll need:

• 2+ years of experience as a Scrum Master, Agile Product Owner, or similar Agile facilitation role, and hands‑on experience with QA, testing, and DevOps
• Working knowledge of Jira (or willingness to become the team’s Jira expert fast)
• Comfort using modern AI tools (e.g., Claude, ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) to speed up your own work — drafting user stories, summarizing meeting notes, triaging bugs, generating test cases, or writing quick scripts — and a thoughtful sense of when to use AI assistance
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, each with different stakeholders, timelines, and constraints
• Strong technical judgment — enough fluency with software development to have real conversations with engineers about trade‑offs, risk, and feasibility
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to translate between technical and non‑technical audiences
• Genuine passion for quality, attention to detail, and follow‑through
• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field — or equivalent experience. Education professionals with strong Agile/technical project backgrounds are also encouraged to apply.

You’ll be even more successful if you have:

• Certification as a Scrum Master, Product Owner, or Project Manager (or equivalent hands‑on experience)
• Experience with Agile practices: user stories, TDD, SDLC, continuous integration, continuous testing, pairing, and automated testing
• Experience with test automation frameworks (e.g., Playwright, Cypress, pytest)
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and monitoring tools, or usage tools like Google Analytics
• Familiarity with Slack, Google Workspace, and GitHub
• Experience in UI/UX design, especially for educational technology
• A background or personal interest in education, learning sciences, or working with researchers
• Experience working in a nonprofit, research, or mission‑driven environment where impact matters as much as output

Why this role, why us?

At the Concord Consortium, the software you help ship is used by real students and teachers in real classrooms. We’re research‑centric, so there’s genuine room to try new tools and processes, question defaults, shape how the team works, and impact the learning of students across the country and around the world. You’ll work directly with a small team of experienced engineers, researchers, and product owners, with real visibility into both the technical and mission sides of the work.

The Concord Consortium is headquartered in Concord, Massachusetts, just outside the historic downtown and next to the commuter rail station. While we value our connection to the town of Concord, we also hire remote employees who are based in California, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, or New York.

Our work environment is casual, collaborative, and intellectually engaging — a creative community of people passionate about science, math, engineering, technology, and education, with frequent technical and research discussions. Learn more about our team .

We offer

• four weeks of vacation
• medical and dental insurance
• a generous TIAA retirement plan
• life and short- and long‑term disability insurance

This is a full‑time, exempt position. The salary range for this position is $70,000 – $90,000 annually. The anticipated starting salary will be determined based on the candidate’s relevant experience, skills, and qualifications, as well as internal parity.

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the United States. The Concord Consortium is unable to provide employment visa sponsorship for this position.

The Concord Consortium is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, disability, genetic information, veteran or military status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.