Charlotte, North Carolina

Branchville, New Jersey

Hartford, Connecticut

Agile Coach

Optomi in partnership with a midsized U.S. domestic property and casualty insurance company with a history of strong, consistent financial performance for nearly 100 years is seeking an Agile Coach. The Agile Leader provides leadership and coaching to delivery teams using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and other agile techniques. Their unique position as both a leading insurance group and an employer of choice is recognized in a wide variety of awards and honors, including listing in Forbes Best Midsize Employers in 2023 and certification as a Great Place to Work in 2023.

What the right candidate will enjoy:

• Working in a hybrid environment!
• Working in an environment where you’re encouraged to be uniquely you!
• Working on a high performing team!

Experience of the right candidate:

• Strong leadership and communication skills.
• Ability to work directly with technical and product teams, as well as program and senior IT leadership.
• Strong command of Scrum, Agile values and principles, and SAFe.
• Deep understanding of SDLC, Project Management and Software Delivery.
• Experience with end to end software development and delivery process.
• Knowledge of modern Agile development techniques such as DevOps, test driven development, and test automation.
• Sound problem solving skills.
• Experience with Agile project management software especially Microsoft Azure DevOps.
• Moderate technical domain proficiency.
• Knowledge of Insurance Industry a plus.
• Understanding and ability to execute and coach at the team and program levels of SAFe: e.g. RTE, Product Management, System Architect.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Management Information Science, Business Administration or related field.
• 10 years of experience in software development, with 4 years of experience in coaching and mentoring Agile skills, the Scrum Framework, Scrum of Scrums leadership and working in SAFe.
• SAFe SASM, CSP, PSC or other advanced Agile certification required.
• PMP or PMI-ACP preferred.

Responsibilities of the right candidate:

• Act as an agile leader and coach for one or more medium or large sized teams of moderate to high complexity, generally ranging in size from 50 - 125 individuals.
• Participate autonomously within ARTs and Scrum Teams as defined agile roles designated by SAFe, including Release Train Engineer and/or Scrum Master.
• Coach senior IT leaders through definition, planning, and execution of departmental agile transformation efforts.
• Facilitates and coaches teams on agile ceremonies such as Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Sprint Review, Retrospective, PI Planning, System Demo, Scrum of Scrums, Product Owner Sync, and Inspect and Adapt. Coaching on all agile SAFe roles, including Release Train Engineer, in Lean/Agile values, practices, tools and methodologies.
• Participate in, facilitate, and lead program and team level planning, execution and continuous improvement.
• Accountable for delivery of moderate to large programs across the entire application lifecycle, aligned with an agile methodology. This includes project initiation, managing project scope, addressing dependencies across teams, providing status, and managing risks/issues.
• Facilitate the creation and maintenance of Product Vision and Roadmaps to enable teams to align execution to business value. Work with senior leadership to report status, escalate and resolve issues, and communicate changes in scope or execution. Work with senior leadership on aligning individual program roadmaps to overall departmental plans.
• Work with Product Manager / Owner and Development Teams to facilitate the refinement, estimation, planning, and execution of features and stories in alignment with Agile Best Practices.
• Drives continuous improvement on agile teams, programs, and departments using techniques such as Inspect & Adapt, Retrospectives, and Root Cause Analysis.
• Facilitate tracking and reporting of agile metrics at the team and program level, such as lead time, velocity, defect leakage, etc. in order to encourage transparency and continuous improvement.