Scrum Master (Cloud)

Improvix Technologies | Federal Program | Washington, DC

Compensation: $145,000 – $165,000

Location: Washington, DC — hybrid, 4 days onsite and 1 day telework per week

Clearance: Active Top Secret required. Secret-cleared candidates considered with the ability to obtain TS — we will support the upgrade.

Employment Type: Full-Time

HALF YOUR BACKLOG WON’T DEMO WELL. PLAN FOR THAT.

In commercial product work, a sprint demo shows something a user can see and react to. Federal cloud modernization is not that. A large share of your sprints will be pipeline hardening, IAM policy, network segmentation, control implementation, and evidence collection for an ATO package. It is real work, it sits squarely on the critical path, and it photographs badly.

Improvix Technologies is hiring a dedicated Scrum Master for a federal cloud modernization program delivering on Google Cloud Platform. You'll own the agile process end to end — every ceremony, the Jira board, sprint visibility, and the demo cadence — working beside a Product Owner and a technical lead and interfacing directly with agency stakeholders.

The job is to keep that cadence real on a team of senior engineers, and to frame the invisible work so that neither the team nor the customer loses faith in a sprint that produced no screenshot. A Scrum Master who can't do that ends up facilitating ceremonies for people who have quietly stopped believing in them.

WHY SCRUM MASTERS TAKE THIS ROLE

• You own the process, full stop. This is a dedicated seat. The agile process is the whole job, not a hat worn by a delivery manager who already has four other responsibilities.
• A Top Secret clearance, supported. If you hold a Secret and can obtain Top Secret, we'll support the upgrade. That clearance follows you for the rest of your career and changes which programs you're eligible for.
• A technically serious team. Cloud engineers, a technical lead, and a Product Owner who all know their material. If you're curious, you'll absorb more about GCP, pipelines, and federal security in a year here than in three years of certification courses.
• Real authority over the cadence. Sprint boundaries, ceremony cadence, board accuracy, and what counts as done are yours to hold. Nobody is going to defend them if you don't.
• A durable specialty. Agile delivery inside federal cloud modernization — where ATO gates and compliance work collide with sprint boundaries — is a narrow specialty with persistent demand. It travels well.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

Ceremonies & Sprint Cadence

• Facilitate the full Scrum framework — daily stand-ups, sprint planning, backlog grooming, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
• Drive the sprint demo at the close of every sprint and own the facilitation cadence around it.
• Protect the sprint from mid-cycle churn, and make the cost visible when the churn can't be avoided.
• Run retrospectives that produce owned actions, and follow up on them in the next one rather than starting fresh.

Backlog & Jira

• Partner with the Product Owner to refine the backlog, write and break down user stories and subtasks, and keep the sprint board accurate in Jira.
• Keep stories small enough to finish and clear enough to build, including the security and pipeline work that resists both.
• Surface risks, dependencies, and design gaps during grooming, when they're still cheap.

Visibility & Reporting

• Serve as the primary point of contact for sprint status — pulling reports, tracking task ownership, and keeping the team and leadership genuinely informed rather than merely updated.
• Translate progress for federal stakeholders, including explaining why a sprint spent two weeks on work nobody can see.
• Track velocity and flow and use them to diagnose problems, not to grade people.

Documentation & Tooling

• Maintain documentation and reference material in SharePoint, coordinating with the BA on documentation deliverables.
• Monitor and manage ServiceNow tickets where they integrate with the Jira workflow, and keep stakeholders current on status.
• Keep the team's knowledge repository in a state where a new engineer can get oriented without a meeting.

Change Management & Technical Context

• Support change management activities at a high level, coordinating with engineers on pipeline and security-related stories.
• Carry enough cloud and DevSecOps literacy to follow a grooming conversation about a Terraform pipeline or a NIST control — and to ask the question that surfaces the dependency nobody mentioned.
• Understand where ATO milestones sit relative to sprint boundaries, and plan around the ones that won't move.

Agile Culture

• Set the standard for how work gets tracked, communicated, and completed — and hold it when the schedule gets tight, which is the only time it matters.
• Coach the team on Scrum practice without turning process into theater.

WHAT YOU BRING

These are the requirements — everything in “Bonus Points” below is genuinely optional. If you meet this list, apply.

• 5–8 years as a Scrum Master in an IT or software delivery environment.
• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) or an equivalent Scrum or Agile certification.
• Demonstrated experience facilitating the full ceremony set and managing sprint execution end to end for a team that was actually shipping.
• Proficiency with Jira for story writing, subtask management, and sprint tracking.
• Working knowledge of at least one cloud platform — AWS, Azure, or GCP. Specific platform expertise isn't required; cloud familiarity is.
• A high-level grasp of DevSecOps concepts and delivery pipelines, enough to contextualize the team's stories and facilitate grooming without getting lost.
• Conceptual familiarity with ATO processes and federal IT security frameworks such as NIST 800-53 and FedRAMP.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills — able to engage confidently with senior engineers, product leadership, and federal customers, sometimes in the same meeting.
• U.S. citizenship and an active Top Secret clearance, or an active Secret clearance with the ability to obtain TS.
• Ability to work onsite four days per week.

BONUS POINTS

• Experience supporting federal IT programs or government cloud modernization initiatives.
• Familiarity with Google Cloud Platform specifically — a genuine nice-to-have, not a requirement.
• Cloud certification from any major provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure) demonstrating foundational cloud literacy.
• CSPO, PSM II, or SAFe certification.
• Experience with SharePoint for documentation management and team knowledge repositories.
• Familiarity with ServiceNow, particularly where it's integrated with Jira for ticketing and work intake.
• Background supporting change management activities in an agile delivery context.
• Experience coaching a team through process changes that outlasted your involvement.

WORKING HERE

Improvix Technologies delivers secure, modern, integrated technology solutions that keep the nation's most critical systems running. We're small enough that a good idea reaches a decision-maker in a day, and close enough to the mission that you'll know exactly what your work supports.

A straight answer on schedule: four days onsite, one day telework. For a facilitation role that proximity is most of what makes the job work — hallway conversations are where half the impediments surface. It isn't a preference we'd quietly trade away later, so we'd rather you know now.

How technical you actually need to be: you will not be writing Terraform. You do need to follow a conversation about a deployment pipeline or a security control closely enough to ask a useful question, and to explain to a federal stakeholder why a sprint full of invisible work was the right sprint. If the technical content of a grooming session is something you'd rather tune out, this team will notice within a month.

On the clearance: Top Secret is what the program requires. If you hold an active Secret and are eligible to obtain TS, we'll consider you and support the upgrade — but be aware the adjudication takes as long as it takes, and we'll be straight with you about where it stands rather than going quiet.

Ready to apply? Send us your résumé. If there's a team whose cadence you fixed, a retrospective that changed something real, or a stakeholder you brought around on why the unglamorous work had to come first, tell us about it — that's the conversation we want to have.

Why Improvix

At Improvix Technologies, we don't just deliver IT solutions — we deliver mission success. Our teams support critical government programs by building secure, innovative, and scalable technology that enables agencies to operate more efficiently and securely.

We believe great technology starts with great people. That's why we invest in our employees' growth, well-being, and long-term success. Our benefits include:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k) with company match

• Three weeks of paid annual leave that increases with tenure

• Life insurance and disability coverage

• Transit and commuting benefits

• Professional development and paid training opportunities

• Performance-based incentives

At Improvix, you'll join a collaborative, mission-focused environment where your expertise drives meaningful impact.

Pay Range Statement

The compensation range above reflects the minimum and maximum base salary Improvix in good faith expects to pay for this position at the time of posting. The final offer will depend on factors such as job-related skills, experience, certifications, clearance level and contract requirements. Improvix does not ask for or consider an applicant's salary history.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Improvix Technologies, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law.

Improvix is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities during the application and employment process. If you require assistance or accommodation, please contact our Human Resources team.

Security Clearance / Citizenship Requirements

Due to the nature of our government contracts, U.S. citizenship may be required for certain positions, and some roles may require the ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance.

Pay Transparency Statement

Improvix Technologies will not discharge or otherwise discriminate against employees or applicants for discussing, disclosing, or inquiring about their own compensation or the compensation of others.