Scrum Master

Job Description

The Opportunity:A challenging and exciting opportunity for a Scrum Master to join the Parasite and Microbes Surveillance Operations team at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in support of the COVID-19 and MalariaGen tracking programmes. If you are interested in being part of a team that is actively contributing towards solving real global challenges, and you can adapt quickly to fast-paced environments, then this may be one of those once in a lifetime opportunities - and we are looking for someone like you!About Us:The Surveillance Operations team is part of a scientific network that connects researchers, clinicians, and global health leaders across the globe with cutting-edge DNA sequencing technologies and genomic research. Through a number of multi-centre projects, we provide a framework for generating, integrating and sharing genetic and genomic data, and for investigating key questions about COVID-19, malaria biology and epidemiology. These frameworks and proof of concept software developments are also the base for supporting genomic surveillance operations across various contexts going into the future.As part of the MalariaGEN initiative delivering its current commitment under a grant provided by the Gates Foundation, the Business Systems Team within Surveillance Operations have built a solution to support the tracking and management of malaria studies and their associated samples. This solution allows global partners to register studies, send Sanger samples for DNA sequencing, along with their associated metadata, and one which enables the tracking and management of these samples through a complex process at the institute with the results being data released to partners and the public. In addition to this, the Business Systems team have also delivered a similar solution for the tracking of COVID-19 samples, which are currently being sent to the institute for DNA sequencing. The Business Systems team within Surveillance Operations continues to focus on the continuous improvement and development of these software applications going forward as well as producing other proof of concept software products in line with the Surveillance Operations strategy.About the Role:As a Scrum Master, you will bring your agile skills and knowledge to the table as you take ownership of a nominated scrum team that is aligned to a specified software product. The team will aim to deliver robust, maintainable, and performant software products and tools to meet the current and future needs of Surveillance Operations activities to facilitate the building of our communities. This will include working with key stakeholders such as Product Manager, Solution Architect, Software Developers and QA testers to facilitate the deliver through the organisation of Scrum ceremonies (Story Time, Sprint Planning and Retrospectives) in an engaging way that is not so much focussed on the ceremony but is focussed on achieving the project objectives.About You:You are a highly organised self-starter who likes to work in a complex, fast moving and challenging environment. With good knowledge and experience in applying Agile/Scrum principles within a Digital Services environment, you can manage stakeholder engagement to ensure clarity of requirements, actively removing ambiguity. You encourage collaboration both internally in the team and externally with stakeholders, ensuring prompt and proactive feedback. You will have out of the ordinary communication skills - you know how to bring people together to achieve a common purpose. You will be comfortable working independently and prioritizing your workload whilst meeting objectives effectively and efficiently. You will have the ability to see the big picture but don’t mind getting your hands dirty in the detail. You will have the opportunity in this role to join a team where Agile adoption is changing the ways of collaborative working and who are delivering solutions that the MalariaGEN team, and their wider global partners need. Essential Skills Technical Skills:

Manage a scrum team to drive productivity, collaboration and deliver success

Ability to work and collaborate with software development teams, product managers, operations managers and other teams to ensure that we have the technologies and processes in place to allow our teams to work efficiently

Demonstrated delivery experience of complex online, web and digital products across multiple platforms and technologies with a thorough understanding of the full development lifecycle using the Agile Scrum methodology.

Manage resource demand and supply across a scrum team to ensure delivery milestones are met, flagging potential issues to the relevant stakeholders before they are experienced.

Experience of Agile software development and testing methods for deployment in cloud environments.

Experience of Agile planning, tracking and management software such as Jira.

Experience of working in environments that adhere to CI/CD principles and tooling such as GitLab would be an advantage.

Experience in working with a wide variety of technologies and on diverse problems would be an advantage.

Ideal Skills Competencies and Behaviours:

Ability to quickly understand scientific, technical and process challenges and break down complex problems into actionable steps.

Ability to manage stakeholders at various levels of the organisation and report into the Leadership team.

Highly developed communication skills with experience of dealing with people at all levels, to successfully engage busy people and capture their input.

High level of organisational skills with the ability to plan and schedule projects effectively and deliver agreed activities consistently on time.

Self-motivated, able to work independently and organise own workload.

Ability to work in a frequently changing environment.