Squad Lead

An exciting opportunity has arisen to be part of the team responsible for digital assisted channels whereby you will be key in shaping the future of Admiral’s customer contact capabilities. Enhancing Admiral’s ability to provide first class customer service. Working with new technologies and delivering transformation workstreams, you will play a proactive role in improving our customer’s experience and, in turn, delivering business value. 

Joining the Digital Assistance Channels team and playing a key role in team leadership, the Squad Lead is responsible for the ownership of the delivery of key initiatives and ongoing development of digital channel technologies and processes from concept through to support. 

The Squad Lead has overall accountability for the success of the Squad, acting both as a servant leader and coach for the team. The main responsibility of the Squad Leads are; removing blockers, ensuring progress can be made by team members by removing issues outside of their control, dealing with any organisational impediments, and protecting the squad from unnecessary distraction.  The squad lead is responsible for the day-to-day agile management activities and ceremonies. The Squad Lead has responsibility for upskilling the Squad in agile ways of working that enable the squad to self-organise, manage and deliver value using agile methodology.

Accountabilities

• Accountable for maximising Squad’s ability to deliver change and contribute to team OKRs.
• Accountable for Squad level ceremonies integrity, consistency and effectiveness driving Squad value.
• Accountable to both the Squad as a whole and each individual Squad member performing as a servant leader.
• Accountable for supporting the Squad to live the following values: productivity, quality, transparency, openness and incremental improvement.

Responsibilities

• Ensuring Squad level ceremonies i.e., daily stand ups, running retrospectives, backlog refinement, Show and Tells, etc. are conducted focusing on value return.
• 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.
• Own and manage risks, issues and dependencies at Squad level.
• Manage and resolve intra-Squad dependencies by working with other Squad Leads within the team.
• Timely and effective tracking and reporting on Squad’s progress against goals to Leadership.
• Managing Squad capacity, utilisation and velocity. Actively engages with other Squad Leads in the team 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 Agile practices and mindsets.
• Supports Product Owner(s) with Squad backlog management.
• Supports Delivery Lead in managing 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.

Desired Knowledge and Experience

• Agile development techniques like: User Stories, Continuous Integration, ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development, BDD - Behaviour-driven development, Continuous Testing, Pairing and Automated Testing.
• Using Jira including the production of effective and timely squad performance monitoring reporting.
• Operating with an embedded systems development lifecycle process underpinned by 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.
• Use of tools such as: Jira, Confluence etc.
• Ability to evidence very strong communication, negotiation, collaboration and influencing skills.

Desired Professional Training Requirements

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

Interview Process

There will be a 1 stage process which includes a 60-minute competency based interview. Interviews will take place throughout October.

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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