Squad Lead

We are looking for an experienced Squad Lead to drive improvements within our Agile squads, support our Product Owners and ensure we can continue to deliver high quality solutions to the business at pace. The DnA tribe is made up of 15 engineering squads, across 3 areas; Tooling & Applications, Data Hub and Data Decisions and Integrations. 

The successful applicant will be an analytical thinker who can research insights, develop our strategy, and design and develop the implementation of our data strategy. They will be a talented, enthusiastic individual with the ability to develop people and build skills, capabilities and knowledge across the squad.  

About you

We are looking for someone enthusiastic with strong communication skills and a desire to drive things forward. The successful applicant will be able to think creatively around a brief and willing to challenge as necessary. You should have experience leading a scrum team in regular, incremental deployments and be confident supporting a Product Owner and Development Team. You will be aware of processes/methodologies to increase velocity and be confident in analysing metrics and suggesting improvements to benefit the team.

We work in an Agile framework and are looking for someone who can work independently, has good teamworking skills, and can deliver to agreed timelines in a fast-paced and changing environment.

Accountabilities

• Maximising Squad’s ability to deliver Sprint goals and contribute to Tribe OKRs.
• Squad level ceremonies integrity, consistency and effectiveness driving Squad value.
• To both the Squad as a whole and each individual Squad member performing as a servant leader.
• Supporting the Squad to live the following values: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness over internal politics in everything it does.
• Supporting effective culture, collaboration and creating the optimum environment for the team to succeed.

Responsibilities

• Ensuring Squad level ceremonies like Daily Scrums, Sprint Planning, Retrospectives, Sprint Review etc. are effective, positive & productive.  
• The effective and consistent operational performance for the scrum process as the Scrum Master.
• Identifying, tracking, removing and escalating both blockers and impediments at Squad level to maintain both pace and flow of value.
• Ensuring compliance to Guardrails and Squad level activities.
• Owning and managing risks, issues and dependencies at Squad level.
• Managing and resolving intra-Squad dependencies by working with other Squad Leads within the Tribe.
• Timely and effective tracking and reporting on Squad’s progress against Sprint goals to Tribe Leadership.
• Managing Squad capacity, utilisation and velocity. Actively engages with other Squad Leads in the Tribe and Tribe leadership to discuss resourcing and utilisation strategies.
• Providing Chapter Lead with relevant input for each Squad member supporting each Squad member’s development and performance needs.

Key interactions

• Coaches Squad team members in Lean-Agile practices and mindsets.
• Support Product Owner(s) with Squad backlog management.
• Collaborates and consults with other Squad Leads in the Tribe to manage resourcing and dependencies.
• Supports Tribe leadership in optimising value flow for the Tribe.
• Works with the Chapter Lead to assist in the development of capability.

Knowledge and Experience Required

• Active Squad Lead or Scrum Master experience for 3 years operating with software development team that was applying scrum mastery techniques, lean agile principles and practices resulting in effective ROI.
• Experience operating within heavily regulated environments including external regulated consumer products and service offerings.
• Knowledge and experience in the use of tools such as: Jira, Confluence etc.
• Knowledge and experience of Agile development techniques like: User Stories, Continuous Integration, ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development, TDD - Test-driven development, Continuous Testing, Pairing and Automated Testing.
• Knowledge and experience of using Kanban Boards including the production of effective and timely squad performance monitoring reporting.
• Knowledge and experience with operating with an embedded SDLC process underpinned by Lean Agile practices.
• Project management fundamentals with the ability to apply principles, tools and techniques to develop/plan, manage or execute projects to ensure successful completion.
• Active Scrum Master experience for 3+ years operating with software development team that was applying scrum techniques, lean agile principles and practices resulting in effective ROI.
• Experience operating within heavily regulated environments including external regulated consumer products and service offerings Knowledge and experience in the use of tools such as: Jira, Confluence etc.

Professional Training Requirements

• SAFe® 5 Agilist certification.
• Agile Management Foundation.
• Scrum Master certification (CSM Certified Scrum Master, PSM – Professional Scrum Master).

Interview Process

There will be a 2- stage process which will include a 1 hour competency based interview and a 1 hour technical-question based interview.  Both interviews will be held via MS Teams and will take place throughout August.

Location

For Hybrid workers (within a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to work from the office twice a month.  For remote workers (outside of a 50-mile radius of our Cardiff HQ) there is an expectation to attend the office a handful of times a year when required (i.e big meetings, workshops etc).

Salary, Benefits, and Work-Life Balance

We do not have a set salary for this position, as it will be dependent on the successful candidate’s experience. We are happy to see CVs from all candidates who meet the requirements and will be happy to discuss the remuneration package.

At Admiral, we are proud to be a diverse business where we put our people and customers first. We have great benefits to ensure employees have a great work-life balance; it's one of the reasons we’re consistently voted one of the Sunday Times Best Big Companies to work for in the UK. We want you to have an element of freedom to define a working lifestyle that supports this, so accommodate flexible hours wherever possible.

All colleagues will receive 33 days holiday (including banks holidays) when they join us, and this will increase with length of service, up to a maximum of 38 days (including banks holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to five days of annual leave in addition to your allocation.

You can also view some of our other key benefits here.

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