Agile Scrum Master/Project Manager

We are looking for a candidate with a strong technical background and a series of successes as a Scrum Master or agile project manager. The candidate must possess a command of and strong belief in the Scrum project management framework as a tool for success. The candidate must be intimately familiar with key XP engineering practices including Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Delivery (CD), Test Driven Development (TDD) and Automated Unit, Component and Acceptance Testing. Reporting to the Travel R&D development manager, the candidate will play a key role in the design and implementation of a standard Scrum based process across our development organization and serve as the Scrum Master for 1-2 teams of 4 - 9 engineers running projects using our JIRA & Confluence tools.

Skills:
Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Excellent teamwork and collaboration skills. Excellent people skills. Bachelor's Degree in a software or computer engineering discipline 5+ years in Agile project management and Scrum Master Experience Certified Scrum Master (CSM certification) Training and experience in software estimation practices. Solid understanding and experience with the various SDLC methodologies: waterfall, spiral, XP, RUP, agile, Scrum. 8+ years of software development experience.

Ideal Character Attributes (a servant-leader):
Leadership: Must be able to garner respect from his/her team and be willing to get their hands dirty to get the job done enabling the team to succeed Communicative and transparent: Must be able to communicate well with teams and foster intra and inter team communication while striving to be transparent to the business and foster trust

Aware of the bigger picture:
Must be the first to notice differences and issues as they arise and elevate them to management Empowering:
Must be able to lead teams to self-organize

Assertive:
Must be able to ensure Agile/Scrum concepts and principles are adhered to, must be able to be a voice of reason and authority, make the tough calls.

Practical:
Beyond theories, must be able to lead and demonstrate in practice value-add principles to the development teams

Continual improvement:
Always looking to improve in the area of focus by discovering and implementing new and better ways of doing things, improving processes both for themselves and the team

Enthusiastic: Must be high-energy and have ability to energize team members

Mediator:
Must be able to facilitate discussion and facilitate alternatives or different approaches

Preferred Qualifications:
Experience with Atlassian's JIRA & Confluence tools PMP Certification Familiarity with IATA common use standards Travel solution experience (SITA, ARINC, IBM, IER or similar) Experienced in software analysis, architectural patterns, design, development and unit test creation

Working knowledge with SDLC tools:
Subversion, Hudson, VMWare LabManager, MSBuild, Selenium Familiarity with the software languages and technologies: C++, C#, XAML (WPF/Silverlight), JavaScript, jQuery, Ajax, XML, Java, Spring, JMS, Web Services and SOA. Development experience using a Server Side web development platform (any of the following or their equivalents: ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, ADF, Grails, Ruby on Rails, Java Servlets, JSF, PHP, etc.) Familiarity with UML modelling Minimum travel is required

Responsibilities:
Organize and facilitate project, release and sprint planning and the daily stand-up activities Facilitate the effective integration of the offshore team members into the day-to-day sprint activities Organize and facilitate demos and retrospectives Track and communicate team velocity and sprint/release progress through JIRA Maintain JIRA/Confluence content up-to-date to provide transparency on solution and sprint backlogs and burn-down charts Ensure the development teams are practicing the core Scrum principles. Assist with internal and external communication, improving transparency to upstream and downstream stakeholders (business owners, support teams, development managers) Facilitate discussion and conflict resolution and empower the teams to self-organize Ensure the team strives to make each increment of functionality potentially shippable Raise delivery commitment risks early to development management Assist team with making appropriate commitments through story selection and task definition Ensure the development teams are including acceptance criteria for stories to be demoed Identify and remove impediments, prevent distractions that interfere with the ability of the team to deliver the sprint goal

Company Profile:
Synergy America, Inc is a 16-year-old Professional Services staffing firm providing contract, contract-to-hire and direct-hire resources to companies looking for key individuals. We specialize in providing top-notch talent for our clients, and help candidates in finding the right position.

We rely on our knowledge of search and hiring procedures. We consider both the companies and the candidates to be our clients. We believe in providing the highest level of service to our clients at all times.