About Silverchair

Silverchair is the premier independent platform partner for scholarly and professional publishers, dedicated to expanding the reach of the world’s most valuable knowledge. By connecting creators, publishers, and users, we amplify the impact of scholarship and enhance the accessibility of critical information. Our global teams develop, build, and host websites, online products, and digital libraries for prestigious publishers, including the American Medical Association, MIT Press, and Oxford University Press.

DEI Statement

At Silverchair, we celebrate and embrace diversity in all its forms. We are committed to fostering an inclusive environment from the moment you consider joining our team. We actively encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply, believing that a variety of perspectives and experiences enriches our community, drives innovation, and strengthens our impact.

Equity and inclusion are at the core of our hiring practices, and we strive to build a team that reflects a broad spectrum of cultures, experiences, and viewpoints. We are particularly committed to increasing representation from groups historically underrepresented in technology careers. Your unique experiences and perspectives are not just welcomed but are integral to our collective success. Join us in our mission to create a culture that unites and brings out the best in all of us.

Learn more about our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion at Silverchair.

Overview:

The Associate Scrum Master provides daily leadership and coordination to one or more Agile teams. This role is responsible for ensuring the Agile Team is working efficiently and effectively by synchronizing activities and removing obstacles in the way of successful delivery. The Associate Scrum Master partners with the Product Owner to ensure the team understands the team's purpose, deliverables, and schedule to deliver on the business commitments.

Essential Functions:

• Provides servant leadership to the team, garners respect from team(s), and is willing to get hands dirty to get the job done
• Prepares, moderates, and follows up on regular Scrum ceremonies; including daily stand-ups, sprint and release planning sessions, sprint reviews, and retrospectives
• Facilitates Agile team scope refinement, estimation, and planning activities to ensure team's approach will deliver desired business value
• Remove impediments or guides the team by finding the right person/people to remove the impediment, leveraging tools and processes such as the team’s JIRA board, governance, and risk profiles
• Builds a trusting and safe environment where problems can be raised without fear of blame, retribution, or being judged
• Supports the Product Owner with respect to refining and maintaining the product backlog
• Supports team in drafting and adhering to agreements for definition of ready and definition of done
• Facilitates cross-team and organizational dependencies to ensure decision making and conflict resolution occurs in a timely fashion
• Responsible for communicating team progress to Program Directors, Product Owners, and other stakeholders
• Creates and publishes metrics to track and review team performance, including burndown charts, velocity, and other sprint and release metrics
• Assesses the Scrum maturity of the team and coaches the team to higher levels of maturity at a pace that is sustainable and comfortable for the team
• Tracks progress of team project scope and works with Product Owner to create change orders for additional or reducing scope as appropriate
• Leads multiple teams with multiple levels of seniority to accomplish project goals
• Is the driving force ensuring that the team is following Silverchair's Scrum standards
• Demonstrate proficiency in leveraging Artificial Intelligence tools and technologies to enhance workflow efficiency, automate repetitive tasks, and/or derive actionable insights.
• AI Utilization
• Maintain AI literacy and understanding of ethical AI applications in academic publishing and scholarly communications
• Demonstrate basic prompt engineering skills for effective AI tool utilization
• Exercise judgment in determining when AI assistance is and is not appropriate for tasks
• Ensure compliance with Silverchair's AI usage policies and data protection requirements
• Collaborate effectively with AI tools while maintaining human oversight and professional standards

Qualifications:

• A Bachelor’s (BA or BS) with 1+ years experience managing projects with Agile teams
• Experience participating in some role on a software development team that was diligently applying Scrum principles, practices, and theory
• Interest in learning and practicing skills and knowledge of multiple Agile approaches: Scrum, Kanban, XP, FDD, Scaled Agile
• Desire to learn and execute Agile Scrum ceremonies and processes
• Desire to learn about and practice widely successful Agile techniques: User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Continuous Testing, Pairing, Automated Testing, Agile Games
• Desire to learn about a wide variety of well-documented patterns and techniques for filling in the intentional gaps left in the Scrum approach (e.g., Burndown charts, Retrospective techniques, servant leadership, facilitation, situational awareness, conflict resolution, continual improvement, empowerment, and increasing transparency techniques)
• Perform additional tasks as needed to meet the needs of the team and department, and to support Silverchair's business needs

Desired Experience:

• Scrum Master certification (CSP, PSM II)
• Previous experience using Atlassian Agile toolsets
• Applicable knowledge of the technologies used by the team
• Communication and mentoring skills
• Experience with client-facing or product development Agile teams

Disclaimer: At this time, we cannot sponsor a new applicant for employment authorization for this position.

No agencies please.