Sr. Scrum Master

Blue Lake Search, LLC; Grand Rapids (MI); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Blue Lake Search, LLC is seeking a technically fluent Delivery Lead / Scrum Master to operate at the intersection of agile facilitation, technical understanding, and release management in a SAFe environment.

You will own the release process end to end—from build and packaging through environment promotion and production deployment—ensuring every release is planned, tested, approved, and deployed with minimal risk, while coaching teams and aligning delivery with PI planning and cross-team

Qualifications

• 5+ years as Scrum Master or Delivery Lead with release ownership.
• Ability to own release management processes end to end.
• Hands-on Azure DevOps and GitHub experience.
• Familiarity with SAFe or scaled agile frameworks including PI Planning.
• Excellent communication translating technical context to stakeholders.
• Experience with automated testing and code coverage standards.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate sprint ceremonies and maintain the team backlog in Azure DevOps.
• Track and communicate delivery metrics and release metrics to stakeholders.
• Own the release calendar and change documentation; enforce end-to-end release process.
• Enforce release gates: regression, code quality, security scans, traceability.
• Own RCA process for production incidents.
• Identify and escalate technical risks before they impact delivery.
• Champion SAFe ceremonies and align squad work with PI objectives.
• Drive automated testing adoption and API contract validation.
• Monitor tech modernization and debt visibility in the backlog.
• Coach teams on agile principles and sustainable pace.
• Maintain a release audit trail and post-deployment health monitoring.

Skills

Scrum Master

Delivery Lead

Agile coaching

Communication skills

Risk assessment

Tools

Azure DevOps

GitHub

ServiceNow

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Role Overview

We are looking for a technically fluent Delivery Lead / Scrum Master who operates at the intersection of agile facilitation, technical understanding, and release management.

You will operate in a SAFe environment, focused on one squad and aligning delivery with PI planning, system demos, and cross-team dependencies. You will own the release process from build and packaging through environment promotion, change management, and production deployment, ensuring every release is planned, tested, approved, and deployed with minimal risk.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Facilitate sprint ceremonies (planning, stand-ups, reviews, retrospectives) and maintain the team backlog in Azure DevOps with clear acceptance criteria, dependencies, and technical context.
• Track, improve, and communicate delivery metrics (velocity, burndown, cycle time) and release metrics (deployment frequency, lead time, change failure rate, MTTR) to stakeholders.
• Own the release calendar and related Change documentation. Enforce the release process end to end — code freezes, regression windows, go/no-go checkpoints, rollback plans, and environment promotion (INT → CERT → PROD).
• Enforce release gates, including regression execution, passing code quality and security scans (SonarQube, Veracode), confirmed test coverage, and complete traceability (repo links, pipeline links, test evidence).
• Own the RCA process for production incidents.
• Proactively identify and escalation technical risks (upstream delays, environment issues, API breaking changes, pipeline failures) before they impact delivery.
• Champion SAFe ceremonies (PI Planning, System Demos, Inspect & Adapt, Scrum of Scrums) and ensure squad-level work aligns with PI objectives.
• Drive automated testing adoption by championing unit test coverage, integration testing, and API contract validation.
• Track Technology Modernization and tech debt ensuring visibility in the backlog with appropriate prioritization.
• Coach team members on agile principles, self-organization, and sustainable pace while shielding the team from external disruptions and scope creep.
• Maintain a release audit trail — release notes, deployment records, incident postmortems — and monitor post-deployment health via Azure Monitor, Application Insights, and Splunk.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years as a Scrum Master, Delivery Lead, or Technical Project Manager in software engineering — with direct experience owning release management processes.
• Technical literacy — CI/CD pipelines, API contracts, SQL, Cloud terminology.
• Hands‑on Azure DevOps experience (boards, dashboards, queries), GITHUB and experience managing release lifecycles including environment promotion (INT → CERT → PROD), code freezes, and rollback procedures.
• Experience with enterprise change management (ServiceNow, CAB, CR/CHG/CRQ, PRR) and SAFe or scaled agile frameworks including PI Planning.Excellent communication skills — translating technical complexity into clear status updates and risk assessments for non‑technical stakeholders.
• Experience driving engineering quality practices — automated testing adoption, code coverage standards, and release gate enforcement in teams with varying test maturity.
• Demonstrated ability to own RCA processes that identify systemic gaps beyond proximate causes, with actionable follow‑through on preventive measures.
• Review the Overall PR Metrics, Familiar with Branching

What This Role Is Not

• Not a meeting scheduler or note-taker — you drive delivery outcomes and own the release process end to end.
• Not a role where "the regression suite exists but nobody runs it" — you own the release gates and ensure they are enforced, not just documented.