Established in 1998, Cars.com is one of Chicago’s original tech companies. Our online platform makes it easier for consumers to shop for, sell and service their cars. With our expert content, mobile app features, millions of new and used vehicle listings, a comprehensive set of research tools and the largest database of consumer reviews in the industry, Cars.com offers innovative products to connect consumers with dealers across the country. Change is in our DNA, and 2017 has been no exception! We've moved to a new Chicago HQ @ 300 S. Riverside, acquired DealerRater, the largest online ratings platform for car dealerships and became a free-standing, publicly traded company on the NYSE!
A true constant through the years has been the incredible culture we've created. Our employees have cultivated an environment leveraging technology, fostering innovation and embracing collaboration. We take pride in how Cars.com empowers our people to win and gain valuable experiences along the way!
Cars.com is embarking on their Lean Product Development Transformation journey. Continuous improvement and encouraging innovation in the development process is a constant theme while successfully delivering against our commitments.
We are looking for a Lean-Agile Coach who recognizes the transformation demands of our growing company while helping strengthen our Agile foundation. The Lean-Agile coach will work closely with our leaders and agile teams, while partnering with other Agile coaches across Product/Technology. The role will be expected to facilitate the continued adoption, delivery improvement and maturity of Lean, Agile, and Engineering practices in Product/Technology. Above all, your work will impact the way cars are sold.
This role will operate at two levels:
- Providing expert consultation to leadership regarding best practices for Lean Agile adoption
- Working directly with the teams and other coaches to align and apply Cars Lean framework effectively
The Lean Agile Coach will work closely with the teams and partner with their Software Development Managers to develop strategies for applying Lean Agile principles, improve the ability for teams to deliver faster, encourage innovation and ultimately ensure these concepts and practices are well-absorbed within the organization.
Required Skills
Coaching:
- Accountable for ensuring all teams understand Lean Agile concepts, and apply them efficiently
- Teach/Mentor/Coach/Guide teams and leadership on emerging lean agile and related engineering practices
- Drive the organization-wide Lean Agile adoption strategy and rollout plans
- Facilitate group sessions such as retrospectives, conflict resolution, decision making, team and special project kick-offs
- Prepare and conduct formal training within teams and across groups within the organization
- Build and evolve communities of practice across the organization
- Guide teams in creation of attainable, measurable, and appropriate Goals & KPIs, ensuring that the team collaboratively creates them and collectively “owns” them
- Identify the need for and availability of extra-team members, tools and support required to enable the team to accomplish Goals and KPIs and leverage their skills and connections to acquire them
- Serve as first point of escalation for impediments which the team has not been able to resolve
- Support team decisions regarding tools & practices and monitor desired outcomes from those decisions
- Raise issues early and often to model the value of early problem detection
- Ensure in JIRA that the "assigned resources" field is being filled in with appropriate team member names. Additionally, validate that hypotheses/experiments are moving through the various stages of the workflow in a timely manner.
General Agile Practices:
- Train leadership and team members on Lean Agile Practices
- Call attention to and help coach non-agile behaviors
- Monitor & promote organizational Lean Agile health & growth
- Serve as change agent consultants for the enterprise in relevant areas of expertise
- Foster cross-team communication & collaboration within the development group and across the organization
- Support a culture of learning new trends, approaches and techniques and applying them in a practical way, building their craft and enhancing the organization’s flexibility
Metrics Responsibilities:
- Monitor and highlight team health metrics and coach to drive improvement
- Evolve framework for measuring and sharing team progress towards team’s goals across the organization
Required Skills:
- Expertise in Lean Agile practices (Lean Startup, Lean Software Development, Scrum, Kanban, and XP)
- Knowledge of JIRA and Confluence
- Proficient with MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint)
- Superior written and verbal communication skills
- Leadership skills including facilitation, negotiation, presentation, and conflict management
- Excellent negotiator, ability to gain respect of the team, external stakeholders, and leadership
- Must have a positive, can-do attitude
- Strong leadership skills to create positive transformational impact to organizations at large
Required Experience:
- At least 5 Years of Agile Coaching
- Agile certification (ex: Scrum, Kanban, Lean, etc)
- Experience in a software development environment including web-based software and mobile development
- Strong organizational change management experience including excellent problem solving and influencing skills, stakeholder engagement, conflict management, etc.
- Experience driving coaching and learning programs organization wide
- Demonstrate servant leadership, and the behaviors that come with the key mindset shifts associated with Lean Agile framework
Preferred Experience:
- Experience leading organizations/enterprises, through Lean Agile transformations
- Engineering / DevOps experience in Build Automation, Test Automation, Test Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Development (CD), Infrastructure, etc.