AHCCCS

Address:  150 N. 18th Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85007

Must Reside in Arizona.

Salary:  $85,000 - $100,000

Grade: 28

FLSA Status: Exempt

Closing Date: Open Until Filled

This position may offer the ability to work remotely, within Arizona, based upon the agency’s business needs and continual meeting of expected performance measures.

The Scrum Master role within the AHCCCS Information Services Division (ISD) will play a key part in supporting the Medicaid Enterprise System (MES) Modernization initiative. This position will collaborate closely with internal project teams, consultants, and vendor partners to facilitate the migration of legacy applications to the Azure cloud environment. Depending on project needs, the Scrum Master may support multiple Agile teams. This role reports directly to the ISD Application Development Manager and will operate in a primarily remote Agile setting, helping teams stay aligned with Scrum principles, remove impediments, and drive continuous improvement.

Major duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to:
• Scrum & Agile Facilitation: Lead and facilitate all Scrum ceremonies for IT teams, including Sprint Planning, Daily Standups, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives. Ensure Scrum practices are understood and consistently followed by developers, testers, engineers, analysts, and technical stakeholders. Maintain disciplined time-boxing, clear agendas, and outcomes that support continuous delivery.
• Impediment Removal & Delivery Flow: Remove obstacles that impact technical teams, including environment issues, system access, network constraints, cross-team dependencies, and approval bottlenecks. Coordinate with IT operations, infrastructure, cybersecurity, architecture, and vendor resources to resolve blockers. Monitor work-in-progress and help the team maintain steady flow and sustainable pace.
• Technical Team Support & Coaching: Coach development teams, QA engineers, systems analysts, and technical SMEs on Agile principles and engineering best practices. Promote techniques such as test-driven development (TDD), code reviews, DevOps practices, continuous integration, and continuous delivery where applicable. Support the Product Owner with translating technical requirements, defect management, system dependencies, and architectural considerations into a well-organized backlog.
• Stakeholder & Cross-Functional Collaboration: Act as the primary facilitator between the Scrum team and technical/business stakeholders, ensuring clarity on requirements, timelines, dependencies, and risks. Support product planning and release planning, ensuring the development team’s work aligns with roadmap commitments and enterprise IT priorities. Work with business analysts, architects, and enterprise PMO partners to ensure integration with larger organizational initiatives.
• Metrics, Reporting & Agile Maturity: Track and present metrics such as team velocity, Sprint burndown, cycle time, throughput, defect trends, and predictability to support data-driven decision-making. Use Agile metrics to help the team forecast future work, identify process challenges, and continuously improve performance. Coach teams and leaders on Agile maturity, enabling smooth scaling of Agile practices across IT.

Knowledge:
• Domain Expertise: Understanding of Healthcare, Medicare, and Medicaid domains is preferred.
• Agile and Scrum Frameworks: Solid grasp of Scrum principles, ceremonies, roles, artifacts, and the Agile Manifesto.
• Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC): Strong background in software development practices, CI/CD pipelines, and DevOps concepts.
• Project Management Tools and Methodologies: Proficiency in Azure DevOps or similar platforms.
• Metrics and Reporting: Familiarity with velocity tracking, Scrum, burndown charts, and other Agile performance indicators.
• Organizational Change Management: Awareness of how Agile adoption influences team dynamics and organizational culture.
• Distributed Teams: Experience working with virtual teams and building a cohesive, collaborative environment where team members feel safe, connected and empowered to deliver high-quality results despite location differences.
• Risk Management: Proficient in identifying, monitoring, and managing risks and issues throughout the sprint, and applying proactive mitigation strategies to minimize negative impacts on sprint commitments.

Skills:
• Facilitation: Lead Scrum ceremonies including Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Planning, Sprint Reviews, and Retrospectives. Participate in Scrum of Scrums to coordinate across teams.
• Collaboration: Act as a Servant-Leader by working closely with Product Owners, business stakeholders, and cross-functional IT teams to clarify requirements and resolve dependencies.
• Conflict Resolution: Proactively identify and resolve team conflicts and remove impediments to ensure smooth sprint execution.
• Coaching and Mentoring: Guide teams and individuals in adopting Agile principles and practices to improve team performance and Agile maturity.
• Communication: Demonstrate strong verbal and written communication skills, effectively engaging with both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Time Management: Manage multiple Agile teams or projects efficiently, change in priorities, censuring timely delivery of sprint goals and milestones.
• Problem Solving: Track and apply the lessons learned from every sprint and drive continuous improvement initiatives.
• Partnership: Collaborate with technical leads and Product Owners to facilitate backlog grooming sessions, ensure well defined user stories with initial estimates, and maintain a healthy product backlog that supports efficient development.
• Tool Proficiency: Configure and manage projects and workflows in Azure DevOps, adapting configurations based on ticket types and ISD requirements.

Abilities:
• Multi-Team Support: Effectively support more than one Agile team with moderate complexity, ensuring consistent delivery and alignment with organizational goals.
• Agile Coaching: Coach team members on Agile principles and practices to foster continuous learning and improvement.
• Tailored Agile Practices: Adapt Agile methodologies to meet the unique needs of individual teams and the broader ISD (Information Services Division) organization. Promote Agile maturity through retrospectives and feedback loops.
• Team Empowerment: Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, self-organization, adaptability, and continuous improvement to build high-performing teams that consistently meet or exceed sprint goals.
• Independent Execution: Work independently while collaborating effectively with cross-functional teams to deliver results.
• Backlog Management Partnership: Partner with business teams to ensure the product backlog is regularly prioritized and appropriately assigned to upcoming sprints.
• Sprint Health Monitoring: Accurately reflect sprint health using information radiators (e.g., dashboards, burndown charts) and proactively take actions to ensure sprint commitments are met

Minimum:
• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with at least 5 years of relevant professional experience (or equivalent combination of education and experience). Minimum of 3 years serving as a Scrum Master in large enterprise environments, demonstrating strong leadership in Agile practices. Experience working with handling healthcare data such as medical claims, within a medical insurance company or at the State/Federal level, is highly desirable.

Preferred:
• Certified Scrum Master (CSM or equivalent). Project Management certification from PMI (e.g., PMP or CAPM).

• Successfully pass fingerprint background check, prior employment verifications and reference checks; employment is contingent upon completion of the above-mentioned process and the agency’s ability to reasonably accommodate any restrictions.
• Travel may be required for State business. Employees who drive on state business must complete any required driver training (see Arizona Administrative Code R2-10-207.12.)

If this position requires driving or the use of a vehicle as an essential function of the job to conduct State business, then the following requirements apply: Driver’s License Requirements.

All newly hired State employees are subject to and must successfully complete the Electronic Employment Eligibility Verification Program (E-Verify).

Among the many benefits of a career with the State of Arizona, there are:
• 10 paid holidays per year
• Paid Vacation and Sick time off (13 and 12 days per year respectively) - start earning it your 1st day (prorated for part-time employees)
• Paid Parental Leave-Up to 12 weeks per year paid leave for newborn or newly-placed foster/adopted child. Learn more about the Paid Parental Leave pilot program here.
• Other Leaves - Bereavement, civic duty, and military.
• A top-ranked retirement program with lifetime pension benefits
• A robust and affordable insurance plan, including medical, dental, life, and disability insurance
• Participation eligibility in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (must meet qualifications)
• RideShare and Public Transit Subsidy
• A variety of learning and career development opportunities

By providing the option of a full-time or part-time remote work schedule, employees enjoy improved work/life balance, report higher job satisfaction, and are more productive. Remote work is a management option and not an employee entitlement or right. An agency may terminate a remote work agreement at its discretion.

Learn more about the Paid Parental Leave program here. For a complete list of benefits provided by The State of Arizona, please visit our benefits page

Lifetime Pension Benefit Program
• Administered through the Arizona State Retirement System (ASRS)
• Defined benefit plan that provides for life-long income upon retirement.
• Required participation for Long-Term Disability (LTD) and ASRS Retirement plan.
• Pre-taxed payroll contributions begin after a 27-week waiting period (prior contributions may waive the waiting period).

Deferred Retirement Compensation Program
• Voluntary participation.
• Program administered through Nationwide.
• Tax-deferred retirement investments through payroll deductions.

Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation such as a sign language interpreter or an alternative format by emailing careers@azahcccs.gov.
Requests should be made as early as possible to allow time to arrange the accommodation. The State of Arizona is an Equal Opportunity/Reasonable Accommodation Employer.