Agile Systems Senior Technical Specialist

The Agile Systems Senior Technical Specialist will oversee and execute a range of agile activities within a dynamic, evolving program environment. You will support a Joint customer Program Office responsible for acquiring the future GEOINT Ground Architecture that will provide the user community with capabilities in a modular, open architecture that provides global, persistent, real-time surveillance and activity-based intelligence information. This position supports a hybrid agile process with the Government as the overall integrator. You will be instrumental in guiding the program's agile efforts and will act as a key point of coordination across various functional areas, ensuring successful implementation of an agile framework construct and delivery of technical capabilities in an agile manner. This position is critical in supporting the overall mission objectives of the program and requires a strong leader with the ability to manage both the technical and strategic aspects of agile planning and management, and to directly execute, manage, and support a range of activities spanning traditional Agile Coach and Solution Train Engineer roles. As an Agile Systems Senior Technical Specialist, you will primarily provide leadership and direction for executing agile project management within the Customer Program Office for cross-component activities, such as development of threads, solution/program epics, work initiatives, and roadmaps necessary to satisfy the customer’s strategic initiatives and related goals; guiding and orchestrating increment and sprint-level activities using Atlassian Jira, Jira Portfolio, and Confluence tools.

Key Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

- Leadership and Outreach:

• Strategic Alignment: Work with leadership to map agile transformation to business and mission goals and enable improved governance. 
• Coaching & Mentoring: Provide coaching, mentorship, and guidance to the program team and its stakeholders to ensure successful agile transformation and execution, adoption of an agile mindset, and implementation of best practices. Serve as a team-wide coach and mentor to ensure adoption and optimized implementation of agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) and related Atlassian tools (Jira, Confluence) resulting in efficient mission and capability delivery.
• Engage with and serve as a primary agile interface/point of contact between customer leadership, technical team leads, and multi-agency stakeholders to understand mission needs and incorporate feedback into agile processes and practices.

- Agile Program Planning, Management, and Execution:

• Ensure adherence to established agile processes and practices, and work with stakeholders to innovate and implement enhancements.
• Oversee the creation, review, and maintenance of agile-related documentation and artifacts.
• Collaborate with program managers, system engineering leads, solution epic owners, and thread architects to align agile and engineering efforts with long-term program goals and vision (e.g., 2035 strategic vision).
• Facilitation: Lead agile planning and execution events, to include pre and post-sync activities across the entire solution train and foster a culture of continuous learning and retrospection.
• Agile Execution: Facilitate large-scale value delivery by coordinating across multiple technical stakeholders and developers to define and align all aspects of systems engineering and agile implementation for the program to include defining and aligning solution epics, driving operational cadence, identifying dependencies and impediments, and aligning release activities with enterprise strategic themes to ensure successful delivery of large, complex systems and capabilities. 
• Support cross-functional collaboration to ensure technical solutions and agile activities are cohesive, dependencies and constraints are identified and managed, and a robust backlog is defined and prioritized to meet the organization’s vision, mission needs, and support value delivery.

- Stakeholder Engagement:

• Communicate technical and strategic updates to division leadership and program stakeholders.
• Coordinate with internal and external organizations to ensure alignment with program objectives.
• Participate in solution epic definition and management, assist in defining work streams and priorities, and ensure agile status is monitored and reported per customer expectations.

- Process Improvement:

• Identify and implement best practices to improve agile processes and outcomes.
• Identify impediments to adoption and work at the organizational, cross-stakeholder, team, and individual levels to resolve them.
• Facilitate continuous improvement and guide cultural transformation to enhance organizational efficiency and collaboration.
• Gather and analyze relevant metrics (e.g., flow efficiency, velocity, predictability) to track and report on progress and present recommendations for improvement.

Required Qualifications:

• Must possess and be able to maintain a TS/SCI Clearance with Poly
• BS 12-15, MS 10-13, PhD 10+
• Demonstrated experience implementing and overseeing complex agile programs at scale and serving in agile leadership roles such as a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and/or Solution Train Engineer.
• Deep understanding of agile methodologies, principles, practices, frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, Lean), and scaling frameworks (e.g., SAFe).  
• Proficiency with Atlassian Jira and Confluence tools.
• Experience as a servant leader, capable of coaching technical teams and providing leadership, mentoring, facilitation, and interpersonal abilities to drive change.
• Proven experience managing technical teams in complex, multi-threaded environments.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving acquisition environment with shifting priorities.
• Demonstrated experience providing “systems thinking” including the ability to visualize the entire value stream and complex dependencies for large mission systems.
• Demonstrated analysis and critical thinking skills.
• Great customer teaming skills: ability to lead and collaborate in cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrated experience providing a proactive approach to innovation, process improvement, and stakeholder engagement.
• Accomplished written and oral communicator, with the ability to develop various products in multiple formats, and lead and capture technical discussions and outcomes.
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office applications.

Desired Qualifications:

• Experience in Intelligence Community (IC) or Department of Defense (DoD) environments.
• Familiarity with engineering and integration of complex mission systems.
• Familiarity with program acquisition processes and lifecycle management.
• Relevant industry certifications to include SAFe Agillist, SAFe Scrum Master, SAFe Product Owner.
• Relevant technical project management experience or Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

We are an equal opportunity employer and federal government contractor. We do not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment as protected by law.