Job Description

About KinderCare Education®

KinderCare Education operates more than 1,380 early learning centers, and more than 560 Champions sites, supported by a corporate team of nearly 600 headquarters employees in Portland, Oregon. In 2019, KinderCare Education earned their third Gallup Great Workplace Award - one of only 39 companies worldwide to win this award.

• In neighborhoods with ourKinderCare®Learning Centersthat offer early childhood education and child care for children six weeks to 12 years old
• At work through KinderCare Education at Work™, family benefits for employers including on-site and near-site early learning centers and back-up care for last-minute child care
• In local schools with ourChampions®before and after-school programs.

Who We Are:

The IT team at Kindercare creates digital experiences that help working parents stay informed on their child's early education and so much more. Headquartered in Portland, Oregon, KinderCare operates more than 1,500 early learning centers and employs more than 32,000 team members. In 2021, KinderCare earned its fifth Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award - one of only four companies worldwide to win this award for five consecutive years. Our devoted family of education providers leads the nation in accreditation and includes KinderCare® Learning Centers, KinderCare Education at Work®, Champions® Before- and After-School Programs. We keep this team online and help parents be where their kids are, even from the office.

Job Summary:
KinderCare is on its Agile journey, this person will bring a perspective of agile frameworks our environment. They will assess the agile maturity of a team and coach them to deeper levels, and are able to adapt agile philosophies and methods to the needs of the team and product. Additionally, this person will have a strong ability to facilitate conversation and bring a high level of decision making and conflict resolution. In addition, we look for someone who understand and lives the concept of servant leadership and ownership and harmony among the entire team. Understanding and working knowledge of the software development lifecycle, how to shape a value-based release cycle in a digital portfolio environment that is forming or changing regularly are necessary to be successful in this role.

The IT Scrum Master position is to provide leadership and direction to one or more Agile product teams. In true Scrum Master fashion we are looking for a true team player who works to actively reduce friction, remove ambiguity, and increase flow in the product lifecycle.

What You'll Do:• Coaches the Scrum team in self-organization, cross-functional skillset, domain knowledge and communicates effectively, both internally within the Scrum team and externally. • Guides the Scrum Team on how to use Agile practices and principles to deliver high quality products and services to our customers. Models expected behavior and best practices.• Responsible for ensuring Scrum is understood and are able to operate in what is happening now, and help move to more product management practices as we evolve, ensuring the team adheres to the appropriate standard. • Facilitates and supports all scrum events: Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective, Program Increment (PI) Planning, and aids in continuous backlog refinement• Creates and maintains metrics for the value stream, teams and stakeholders, using data points and trends to communicate progress, quality, bottlenecks, team health.• Resolves team impediments to increase the effectiveness of the application of Scrum in the organization.• Promotes a fun, learning culture and environment moving the team to a high performing level by recognizing areas of strength and improvement and employing appropriate coaching and development techniques.• Act as liaison across value streams to successfully align work, dependencies, manage risks, and drive decision making.• Contributes to the advancement and improvement of Agile practices within the organization.• Must be flexible to adapt to the different agile maturity levels within the organization and be able to adapt approach to leverage waterfall/agile methodologies

Qualifications

Who you are:• Experience 4 years performing in a formal Scrum Master function• Track record of exemplifying and promoting Agile values and principles, Scrum Master certification highly preferred• Deep knowledge of an Agile framework or method (i.e. Scrum, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Kanban), and understanding of software development life cycle models • Adept at refinement, story splitting, estimation, velocity, retrospection, and other Scrum techniques• Experience using agile planning tools (Jira, Azure DevOps, etc.) Specific experience using Jira a plus• Outstanding communication (both oral and written), facilitation, negotiation, and coaching skills. Ability to initiate and foster collaborative relationships. Excellent customer and user experience focus• Excellent organizational and analytical skills with meticulous attention to detail• Ability to be highly responsive and flexible to meet demanding deadlines• Knowledge of organizational change management a plus

Our highest priority has always been to keep our employees, children, families, and communities as safe and healthy as possible. Starting October 18, 2021, we began requiring COVID vaccinations or weekly COVID testing for all unvaccinated employees who are required to be in a KinderCare Education community space or workspace to perform their work (center, National Support Center, and offsite meeting environments). We are also subject to state law, local ordinances, and Health Department requirements for employees working in child care and school facilities.

KinderCare Education employs more than 32,000 team members across 1,700 locations nationwide. Our devoted family of education providers leads the nation in accreditation and includes KinderCare® Learning Centers, KinderCare Education at Work®, Champions® Before- and After-School Programs, Cambridge Schools™, Knowledge Beginnings® and The Grove School®.

KinderCare Education is an Equal Opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, national origin, age, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, marital status, military or veteran status, gender identity or expression, or any other basis protected by local, state, or federal law.