Scrum Master

Guidehouse is seeking a collaborative Mid-Level Scrum Master to support Agile teams delivering in a complex federal technology environment in McLean, VA. The role involves facilitating team routines, reinforcing Agile values and Scrum practices, maintaining visibility into progress and risks, and helping resolve blockers that affect sprint goals. This hands-on facilitation and coaching position supports a delivery team while escalating broader organizational issues as needed. The Scrum Master works closely with the Product Owner to promote backlog readiness, coordinate dependencies, use delivery metrics appropriately, and foster a respectful, self-managing, and continuously improving team environment.

Responsibilities

• Facilitate Scrum events, including sprint planning, daily Scrum, sprint reviews, retrospectives, and backlog refinement sessions.
• Coach team members on Agile values, Scrum practices, self-management, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Partner with the Product Owner to support clear sprint goals, a transparent and prioritized backlog, and well-understood backlog items.
• Identify, track, and help remove impediments; escalate issues that require program, stakeholder, or organizational action.
• Protect the team from unnecessary disruption while promoting productive engagement with stakeholders and dependent teams.
• Monitor sprint progress, delivery trends, risks, dependencies, and team health using practical Agile metrics and visual management tools.
• Facilitate conversations that resolve conflict, clarify expectations, and strengthen collaboration across business and technical participants.
• Coordinate cross-team dependencies and support release planning, demonstrations, testing readiness, and incremental delivery activities.
• Help the team maintain agreed working practices, quality expectations, and a clear Definition of Done.
• Promote data-informed retrospectives and follow through on measurable improvement actions.
• Maintain concise delivery artifacts, including team boards, impediment and risk logs, dependency tracking, action items, and stakeholder updates.
• Ensure Agile delivery activities and team artifacts align with applicable federal IT governance requirements, including the HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC), required reviews, deliverables, approvals, and stage-gate expectations.
• Support Agile adoption and consistent delivery practices across a multi-team, multi-vendor federal program.

Requirements

• Eligibility to obtain and maintain a Federal or DoD Public Trust; candidates must receive approved adjudication before onboarding (an active Public Trust or suitability determination is preferred).

• Bachelor’s degree required.

• Minimum of four years of experience supporting Agile software development, technology delivery, or IT modernization teams, including at least two years serving as a Scrum Master or Agile team facilitator.

• Working knowledge of Scrum events, accountabilities, artifacts, commitments, and empirical delivery practices.

• Demonstrated experience facilitating Agile ceremonies and helping teams address impediments, dependencies, delivery risks, and improvement opportunities.

• Ability to coach team members constructively without directing or assigning their work.

• Experience partnering with Product Owners on sprint goals, backlog refinement, readiness, and stakeholder collaboration.

• Understanding of the software development life cycle, iterative delivery, testing, release coordination, and DevSecOps concepts.

• Working knowledge of federal IT governance and project life-cycle controls, including support for compliance with HHS EPLC documentation, review, approval, and stage-gate requirements.

• Ability to track and communicate delivery metrics, risks, dependencies, decisions, and action items clearly.

• Strong facilitation, communication, conflict-resolution, organizational, and problem-solving skills.

• Ability to collaborate effectively with business, technical, operational, vendor, and government stakeholders.

• Adaptable, team-oriented, and able to work effectively in a fast-paced, regulated environment with moderate supervision.

• Proficiency with Agile delivery and collaboration tools such as Jira, Azure DevOps, Confluence, SharePoint, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint.

• Nice to Have

• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I), SAFe Scrum Master, or comparable Agile certification.

• Experience supporting federal or government IT programs.

• Experience with platform modernization, cloud delivery, DevSecOps, APIs, shared services, or legacy system transition efforts.

• Experience facilitating distributed, cross-functional, or multi-vendor teams.

• Familiarity with scaled Agile planning, cross-team dependency management, release coordination, and program-level ceremonies.

• Experience using flow, predictability, quality, and team-health measures to support continuous improvement.

• Understanding of change management and organizational readiness principles.