Senior Scrum Master

Our vision & mission: Paro is freeing business professionals from the constraints of traditional employment by empowering them to pursue meaningful work on their own terms. In turn, we are democratizing access to the business solutions that companies need. 

What we deliver: Paro provides flexible finance and accounting solutions to businesses via its network of highly vetted freelance experts. Through our proprietary AI-powered platform, we match clients with the best-fit experts to solve problems and drive growth. Our carefully curated expert community provides a range of financial services to clients, from basic bookkeeping and accounting to highly specialized corporate development and strategic advisory.

The Role

Paro is looking to add an experienced Senior Scrum Master to join our modern product team. As our first Scrum Master you will help define and implement scrum processes and act as a couch, mentor, & leader to the broader product and engineering teams on best practices. You will be responsible for facilitating vital communication and collaboration between product, engineering, and stakeholders on requirements, priorities, and continuous process improvements.

You’ll be responsible for managing a delivery team for key areas of the application, driving adoption of best practices in the Agile/Scrum-based delivery methodology, budgetary and schedule accountability, and more. The ideal candidate will also be positioned to help grow our scrum team in the coming year as we continue to grow our product and engineering teams both domestically and offshore.

Core Responsibilities:

• Manage a cross-functional team consisting of backend and frontend developers, QA staff, and engineers, to ensure features and fixes are delivered on time and with quality, following the Scrum methodology
• Lead Agile teams to become self-organized and empowered, to determine the best way to get the work done
• Perform Sprint Reviews and track progress of action plans
• Deliver weekly status reports to internal and external stakeholders
• Strong command of standard Project Management methodologies such as Agile, Scrum, Kanban
• Assist with clearing obstacles identified by the team and guiding the team to the right process or resource to clear blockers
• Utilize KPI dashboards to monitor and keep tasks on track
• Track Sprint progress against appointments and report possible deviations
• Responsible for scheduling and facilitating core Agile meetings with one or more teams (Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-up, Demo, Backlog Grooming, etc.)
• Triage production issues, and allocate to sprints based on priority.
• Report on project status, budget, schedule, and Agile metrics such as velocity and cycle time

How You'll Add Value:

• 3+ years experience delivering sophisticated, mission-critical, high-quality software solutions in a timely manner
• At Least 1 year experience acting as a Scrum master or following another agile methodology
• Bachelor's degree or comparable hands on experience
• Proven track record of on time deliveries 
• A background in corporate finance and understanding of the marketplace is a plus
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to convey intricate ideas in a simple, clear, and concise way
• Expertise in writing epics, user stories and product quality assurance
• Certified Scrum Master and/or Certified Scrum Professional preferred
• Extensive knowledge of the well-documented patterns and practices of Scrum (i.e. ceremonies, burndown techniques, various retrospective formats, etc.).
• Experience with conflict resolution and situational awareness.
• Proven experience with continuous process improvement.
• Proven ability to manage ambiguity and deadlines 

Who you are:

We’re more interested in how you add to our innovative community than formal education or experience. That said, you will shine in this role if you:

Believe that in order to be successful, you need to be surrounded with others who can be their authentic selves at work while driving forward the future of work with Paro. You value taking smart risks and having your colleague’s backs. You welcome challenges and are rigorous in ensuring all voices are heard. You are open to understanding each other’s experiences and communicating effectively together. At Paro we work hard, but we also want every employee to enjoy the journey. You work collaboratively, do the right thing, never settle and put your best work into everything you do. 

Benefits at Paro:

• Compensation - We offer a competitive base salary and equity options in Paro.
• Benefits - We offer a comprehensive benefits package including: medical (Blue Cross Blue Shield), dental, vision, and a 401(k) plan. Paro currently does not match 401(k).
• Vacation - We offer our employees unlimited vacation, as we believe rest and recharging allows you to bring your full self into work. In addition to unlimited vacation, we observe all federal holidays and offer unique Paro Holidays during months there isn’t a federal holiday
• Office Environment - We have a beautiful, relaxed office space in River North, steps away from public transportation. We love our pets and have a pet-friendly office for your furry friends as well.
• Remote Work - Given our company’s mission to empower professionals to pursue meaningful work on their own terms, we believe we too can accomplish great things while not always together under one roof. Therefore, we accept remote employees in the following states: IL, OH, MI, AZ, WA, PA, NJ, NY, TX, IN

More about Paro 

Join us as we shape the future of finance work. A mass migration to a workforce without boundaries is already underway, with many leading analysts predicting that 50% of the workforce will be freelancing by 2025. We recently raised a $25M Series B funding round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from existing investors Revolution Ventures, Sierra Ventures and KGC Capital, so we are ready and excited to invest in even greater growth as we disrupt the $500+bn antiquated finance and accounting industry!

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a company that embraces and celebrates diversity and inclusion. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.