We are Looking for Our Next ScrumMaster!

Are you a take-charge, energetic ScrumMaster who has experience working with teams to relentlessly improve, adapt, and deliver business value in the form of software that meets or exceeds stakeholders' needs? If so, we are looking for you!

About Us and Why We’re Hiring

Ascendle is a vibrant, passionate company offering comprehensive software product strategy, design, and development services to a variety of industries. We use a highly disciplined and proven process, coupled with thoughtfully chosen technologies, to solve complex business problems for our clients, enabling them to create innovative web and mobile apps that delight and empower their customers. More simply: We deliver real business value to our clients in the form of software that does exactly what they need it to do, and we do it in an incredibly predictable, stress-free way.

It turns out there are many companies who need this sort of thing, so Ascendle is growing. We are actively looking to expand our team of ScrumMasters.

You’re the person we are looking for if you enjoy process, prioritization, and people. You start your day with a smile, a plan, and a quick check of all the things (Jira, Slack, e-mails). You are optimistic and have a passion for progress and relentless improvement. You understand that there will be twists and turns on the road, but you are usually able to spot them and find your way with ease; boulders and missing planks in the bridge are no match for you.

Requirements

We have worked with many ScrumMasters over the years, and we have a good idea of the qualities and experience needed to succeed at Ascendle in this role – so these are real actual requirements. If you don’t have them, we are sure you have other amazing things going for you; it’s just not going to work out for you right now in this role at Ascendle. It’s not you, it’s us!

• 1 yrs experience with Scrum in a real-world environment as a ScrumMaster
• 3 yrs experience working as a member of a team that was developing, testing, and deploying software
• Our Core Values have to really resonate with you, like really. If you are watching this video grinning and nodding your head, then you will love it here, and we seriously can’t wait to hear from you.

Additional qualities we will be looking at to see if you are a good fit for this role at Ascendle:

• Self-disciplined, proactive, punctual, and detail-oriented
• A natural tendency to take extreme ownership of the work you produce and your team's success
• Team player with a love of collaboration - you thrive on working together towards a common goal and consistently achieving it!
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills, including in-person and virtual presentation skills
• An innate desire to continuously improve and learn while being an expert in agility

Familiarity with the following tools, technologies, and techniques is a definite plus:

• Jira
• Confluence
• Azure DevOps
• Source control and branching strategies
• Dad Jokes

Who You’d Be Working With

Ascendle people are the best of the best, and we really think you’ll like working with us. Here’s why:

• We care: All of us, to the very highest levels of leadership, actually care about doing what is best for our clients and each other.
• We are dedicated: We don’t stop until it’s done and done right. We have an excellent work-life balance, but that moves and flows around, ensuring the client always has what they need from us. It’s a culture of balance between rest and never dropping the ball.
• We are authentic and intelligent and valued for that: No one feels they must put up any kind of veneer to fit in or get by. We speak our minds without fear, we listen to each other without prejudice, and the best ideas are valued and incorporated into how we do business, period.
• We are in this together: It’s 0% “what’s in it for me” and 100% “what’s in it for us” (and that “us” includes, most importantly, the client).
• We are truly agile: It’s not just a label or a buzzword for us. It’s truly how we think. It’s a mentality of not spending time and effort on things that don’t matter. It’s not getting tripped up by the sunken costs fallacy. It’s testing an idea as fast as possible, both in our internal processes and our work with clients, finding out if it works, and then building on it or abandoning it as the actual (not theoretical) results dictate.

As a ScrumMaster, you’ll be working with people in a wide variety of roles such as client stakeholders (both technical and business), Architects, Product Owners, Developers, and Q.A. Engineers, to name a few. You’ll also have a top-notch peer group of ScrumMasters to rely on for inspiration and support. Here are a couple of examples:

• Sarha is a seasoned ScrumMaster and agile guru who enjoys a good challenge. When she isn’t running a Scrum event, she can be found with her two children, laughing as much as possible.

• Patrick is one of a kind, similar to a Swiss army knife. When he isn’t patrolling Jira boards and engaging with the team, he can be found jamming out to his favorite music.

Our other equally talented ScrumMasters are a little too mysterious to put into words (they may be unicorns); you’ll have to meet them! There are also more joining soon (did I mention Ascendle is growing?).You’ll also run into Aaron, Tom, Luke, and Nelson, our dynamo Product Owners; Kevin, Ben and Graham, technical wizards of the Architect variety; Tina, our do-it-all master of the Operations Department, and whenever you want, you get to talk to Dave Todaro, the man, the myth, the legend – originator of our company and much of our process. We are leaving a lot out here, but we don’t want to ruin all the surprises!

P.S. There are dogs… So. Many. Dogs.

How You’d Work at Ascendle

Now that you’ve met a few people you’d be working with, let’s talk more about how Ascendle operates as a company:

We Live Where We Want

We are a remote and distributed company, with team members working from home-based offices most of the time. We value flexibility while at the same time doing whatever it takes to keep our clients happy. The majority of the team is based within a couple of hours of Seacoast New Hampshire (with a few outliers), and we do like to have periodic in-person gatherings and go to our client’s sites when it makes sense. That means that depending on where you are and the client you are working with, there may be infrequent overnight travel. If you are somewhere in the Lower 48, and that sounds reasonable, then you are good! Keep in mind that our workday generally aligns with our client’s time zone, so that would need to work for you.

We Don’t Do Emergencies

Just like the way we build software, our work weeks are predictable. While there are minor, infrequent exceptions, they rarely exceed 40 hours. Gone are the days of all-hands-on-deck bug fixing and emergency releases – it’s just not how we do things. Our proven process ensures we don’t have to. We even have a policy that you need to leave space between meetings whenever possible so that you aren’t rushed, unprepared, or forced to neglect your personal needs to be on time (which you have likely realized by now is also really important to us).

We Don’t Do Drama

Along with emergencies, workplace drama isn’t a thing at Ascendle. We truly work together to help each other succeed, share the load, hold ourselves and each other accountable, and continue to improve. If things don’t go quite right, there isn’t even a hint of fault-finding at any company level for even a second. We all immediately get busy together figuring out how to make it not happen again, and then we write it down and follow it.

We Document Our Processes, Follow Them Rigorously, and Continuously Improve

How many times in your current or previous jobs have you said, “We should write this down, all promise do it this way every single time until we learn a better way to do it, and then we will update our process and do it that way until we learn more, then we’ll do it again.”? A few? Well, we ACTUALLY DO THAT.

We Take Time Off

We work hard but recognize that it needs to be balanced with downtime. We want you to take time off (we really like you, but sometimes we both need a break ), so we have an unlimited vacation policy with only two requirements:

1. Keep the client blissfully happy – that means preparing for your time off and putting the proper measures in place to keep things running smoothly while you are gone.
2. You must take at least five consecutive unplugged days off per year – seriously, we insist you turn off your devices and forget we exist for at least one week per year (not negotiable).

Miscellaneous

• We pay competitive wages: We only hire people who will give our clients and us their best, and we are willing to pay for it.
• We have all the benefits: Including the previously mentioned vacation policy, cost-effective health plans, 401(k), and a literal plethora of personal and professional growth opportunities.
• Our managers take care of us: We have regular 1:1s, reviews twice a year, and are all executing on professional development plans.
• Our top leadership takes care of the company: Ascendle is lovingly managed for the long haul, sustainable growth while retaining the highest client satisfaction and profitability.
• We are in the know: Our leadership is incredibly transparent. We are always aware of what’s going on with the company – strategy, finances, current, and potential clients, and have ample opportunities to ask questions and provide feedback.
• They keep giving us stuff: We all have lots of clothes and cups and all sorts of cool things that say Ascendle on them.

It is really that good. You should join us!

More about you, Ascendle’s Newest ScrumMaster: What Success Looks Like

Ascendle’s ultimate goal is to deliver real business value to each client in a controlled, predictable way. The ScrumMaster succeeds when the team succeeds in delivering what was promised, sprint after sprint. If you feel a sense of personal responsibility for ensuring that your team always has everything they need to execute and that any obstacles are immediately removed, you are doing it right.

Just as important is being part of the internal Operations team that continuously examines and refines the process we apply to our client projects. We will want you to learn the way we do things and apply the proven process, all the while being vigilant for improvement opportunities and fearlessly bringing those up for discussion and potential implementation.

But What Will I Actually Be Doing?

You will jump in without fear to guide the team on agile principles while driving stories to done and delivering business value to stakeholders. Knowing what the team needs ahead of time, using your wizarding powers, you will relentlessly remove impediments and orchestrate sprints that delight our clients. This involves:

• Organizing and facilitating all Scrum ceremonies
• Continuously engaging the team and empowering members to be as effective as possible
• Working with the Product Owner to ensure projects are moving along in alignment with the Product Goal
• Building and maintaining strong, positive relationships with the team and stakeholders
• Tactfully influencing and negotiating with other teams to remove impediments
• Capturing and tracking metrics to provide insight into your team’s performance

How to Apply

1. Click Apply for This Job and complete the form.
2. Attach a cover letter containing two pages.
   1. Tell us a little bit about you and your relevant experience, why this position resonated with you, and why you would be a great fit. Pretty standard cover letter, but don’t worry about standing out – just write from the heart! We trust you won’t apply if you don’t meet our requirements or our salary range doesn’t work for you, so we will read your letter, promise!
   2. On a second page, answer these questions:
      1. How do you meet our three main requirements (Scrum experience, software experience, and being in love with our Core Values)?
      2. What does your next company and position ideally look like?

• What key things are important to you and why?

1. Attach your Resume.
2. Submit

That’s it. Remember, we are actively hiring for this role, so time is of the essence!

We will send you a confirmation once you apply. If you don’t see it soon, please check your Promotions and Updates inbox, junk folder, or any filters you have set up, and be sure to add us to your safe sender list to ensure future emails come through. If you’re the one, we’d be sad if you missed our messages!

If you aren’t interested or available for this position but know someone who would be perfect, please pass this along! Also, if you know of an awesome Product Owner or Software Architect, we are looking for more of them as well - please make sure they see these: 

Software Architect

Product Owner

Thanks for your time, and have a wonderful day! 

- The Ascendle team