Senior Scrum Master

Kestra Financial, Inc.; Tempe, Northern (AZ, KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Kestra Financial, Inc. in Tempe, AZ is seeking a Senior Scrum Master to lead agile teams within the Data, Analytics & AI Platform group.

You will partner with multiple Scrum and Kanban teams to improve delivery predictability, collaboration, and value delivery across data initiatives. You’ll coach teams, facilitate ceremonies, remove impediments, and mentor Product Owners while aligning with Kestra’s agile standards.

Qualifications

• 5+ years’ Scrum Master experience.
• 3–5 years’ data-domain team experience, cloud data platforms preferred.
• 10+ years in the technology industry.
• Certified Scrum Master (preferred).
• Solid understanding of SDLC and Agile incl. Scrum/Kanban.
• Experience with Jira or similar tracking tools; Jira Service Management desirable.
• Experience with distributed teams across time zones.
• Exposure to data lifecycles, pipelines, batch vs streaming.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate all Scrum ceremonies: sprint planning, daily standups, backlog refinement, retrospectives, release planning.
• Partner with Product Owners to manage backlog and value delivery.
• Identify and remove impediments and barriers affecting team performance.
• Coordinate dependencies across distributed teams and time zones.
• Coach teams, Product Owners, and stakeholders on Agile principles and self-organization.
• Provide leadership within the Scrum Master team and promote accountability.
• Drive release planning improvements and enable teams to focus on execution.
• Use Agile metrics to identify trends and drive process improvements.
• Promote engineering best practices for predictable delivery and continuous delivery.

Skills

Scrum Master

Agile coaching

Facilitation

Cross-team collaboration

Stakeholder communication

Continuous improvement

Education

Certified Scrum Master (preferred)

Tools

Jira

Databricks

Profisee

Jira Service Management

Job description

Lead with Purpose. Partner with Impact.

Kestra is seeking a talented, experienced Senior Scrum Master to support our Data, Analytics & AI Platform group. In this role, you will partner with multiple Scrum and/or Kanban teams to strengthen efficiency, predictability, and collaboration across dynamic Data, Analytics, and AI initiatives. As part of Kestra’s Scrum Master team, you will apply your experience and Agile expertise to help align teams and Scrum Masters around consistent practices, improve delivery effectiveness, and drive continuous improvement.

What you’ll Do:

• Facilitate all Scrum ceremonies, including sprint planning, daily standups, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and release planning.
• Partner with Product Owners to maintain healthy backlog management, prioritization, and value-driven delivery.
• Identify, remove, and elevate impediments, risks, and organizational barriers that impact team performance and delivery.
• Coordinate dependencies, issue resolution, and collaboration across distributed teams and multiple time zones.
• Coach teams, Product Owners, and stakeholders on Agile principles, Scrum practices, continuous improvement, and self-organization.
• Provide leadership and coaching within our Scrum Master team.
• Foster a culture of accountability, transparency, collaboration, healthy communication, and continuous learning.
• Lead and continuously improve release planning and delivery processes, enabling engineering teams to focus on execution and Product Owners to focus on business priorities.
• Use Agile metrics and performance data to identify trends, measure team effectiveness, and drive corrective actions and process improvements.
• Promote engineering best practices, including predictable delivery, automation, continuous delivery, technical debt management, and product sustainability.
• Stay current with industry practices; experiment with new techniques to improve team s’ Agile maturity and effectiveness.
• Uphold Kestra’s core values (Make it Happen, One Team, Serve) in daily interactions and delivery commitments.

What You Bring:

• Must have 5+ years’ Scrum Master experience.
• Must have 3-5 years’ experience working with teams in a data domain, ideally with experience in Cloud-based data platforms, e.g. Databricks, and master data management tools, e.g. Profisee.
• Must have 10+ years of overall technology industry experience.
• Certified Scrum Master (preferred).
• Solid understanding of the software development lifecycle and Agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban (and experience operating as a Scrum Master in both frameworks).
• Strong experience with Jira, or a similar issue-tracking tool. Experience with Jira Service Management is desired.
• Experience with distributed teams across multiple time zones and resolving the challenges this can present.
• Experience with data lifecycle & pipelines (ingestion → transformation → consumption).
• Understanding of batch vs streaming vs near-real-time delivery.
• Awareness of data quality, lineage, and governance dependencies.
• Exposure to analytics and AI/ML workflows is a plus, including supporting teams delivering data science and machine learning use cases.
• Experience working in the financial industry and awareness of basic financial concept s.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.