Scrum Master
About this opportunity
Career Category
Information Systems
Job Description
ABOUT AMGEN
Amgen harnesses the best of biology and technology to fight the world’s toughest diseases, and make people’s lives easier, fuller and longer. We discover, develop, manufacture and deliver innovative medicines to help millions of patients. Amgen helped establish the biotechnology industry more than 40 years ago and remains on the cutting-edge of innovation, using technology and human genetic data to push beyond what’s known today.
ABOUT THE ROLE
Role Description:
We are seeking a Scrum Master to drive Agile execution and continuous improvement within Scaled Agile (SAFe) environments. The Scrum Master will serve as a servant leader, facilitating Agile ceremonies, coaching teams, and enabling Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to deliver high-value solutions efficiently. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in SAFe, Agile coaching, cross-team collaboration, and enterprise Agile transformation, ensuring alignment between teams, business objectives, and Lean-Agile principles.
Roles & Responsibilities:
Act as a Scrum Master within a Scaled Agile (SAFe) environment, facilitating Agile ceremonies such as PI Planning, Scrum of Scrums, Sprint Planning, Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, and Inspect & Adapt sessions.
Guide and support Agile teams, Product Owners, and stakeholders, fostering self-organization, cross-team collaboration, and high-performance delivery.
Coach Agile Release Train (ART) teams on SAFe best practices, Lean-Agile principles, and Agile mindset adoption.
Facilitate Program Increment (PI) Planning and ART synchronization, ensuring clear dependencies, objectives, and risk mitigation strategies.
Remove organizational and technical impediments, enabling teams to deliver value faster and with higher quality.
Promote continuous improvement and relentless execution, guiding teams in identifying and implementing retrospective action items.
Assist Product Owners and Business Owners in effective backlog management, prioritization, and value-driven decision-making.
Foster an environment of transparency, psychological safety, and accountability, enabling trust and continuous learning.
Drive SAFe Lean Portfolio Management practices, ensuring alignment between strategic initiatives and Agile execution.
Enable Agile metrics tracking and reporting, leveraging KPIs such as Velocity, Flow Efficiency, Lead Time, and Predictability to measure team progress.
Collaborate with Release Train Engineers (RTEs), Solution Architects, and DevOps teams to optimize delivery pipelines and Agile execution.
Promote DevOps and CI/CD adoption, fostering a culture of Lean-Agile technical excellence and innovation.
Stay updated with SAFe and Agile industry trends, continuously improving Agile methodologies, frameworks, and tools.
Must-Have Skills:
SAFe Certified Scrum Master (SSM), SAFe Advanced Scrum Master (SASM), or SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE) certification.
Hands-on experience with Agile Portfolio Management and Agile Governance.
Experience as a Scrum Master in Agile and SAFe environments.
Deep understanding of SAFe principles, Agile Release Trains (ARTs), Lean-Agile frameworks, and Agile coaching.
Hands-on experience with SAFe Agile ceremonies, PI Planning, Scrum of Scrums, Inspect & Adapt, and Iteration execution.
Strong knowledge of Agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, XP, SAFe) and enterprise Agile transformations.
Proficiency in Agile project management tools (JIRA, Rally, Azure DevOps, Confluence, Miro).
Experience with Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), Lean-Agile metrics, and flow-based work management.
Ability to coach, mentor, and empower Agile teams, fostering collaboration, servant leadership, and high performance.
Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, ensuring alignment across business and technical teams.
Understanding of DevOps, CI/CD, Test Automation, and Agile Quality Assurance.
Proven ability to resolve conflicts, remove blockers, and optimize team performance.
Good-to-Have Skills:
Domain experience with Biotech/Pharma industry is a plus
Additional certifications in Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), or SAFe Agilist (SA).
Experience in leading SAFe implementations, Agile transformations, and enterprise Agile coaching.
Knowledge of Value Stream Mapping, Lean Thinking, and OKR-based goal setting.
Education and Professional Certifications
Doctorate Degree with 3-5 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field
OR
Master’s degree with 6 - 8 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field
OR
Bachelor’s degree with 8-10 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field
Soft Skills:
Excellent analytical and troubleshooting skills.
Strong verbal and written communication skills
Ability to work effectively with global, virtual teams
High degree of initiative and self-motivation.
Ability to manage multiple priorities successfully.
Team-oriented, with a focus on achieving team goals.
Ability to learn quickly, be organized and detail oriented.
Strong presentation and public speaking skills.
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT
Amgen is an Equal Opportunity employer and will consider you without regard to your race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status.
We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request an accommodation.
.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Information Technology role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 1097 comparable Information Technology roles across 55 biopharma companies.
Salary context
143 of 1097 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 1097 comparable roles
+ 23 more countries
Seniority mix
612 of 1097 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
1 of 1097 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.