Program Manager - SAFe Scrum Master

About the role:  

• Blackbaud Product & Technology Group (PTG) seeks an experienced SAFe Scrum Master in its PMO. This role champions SAFe across engineering teams, driving continuous delivery of large-scale, cloud-based solutions within an Agile Release Train (ART). Focus areas include agile project management, operational excellence, and process adherence.
• The ideal candidate is skilled in multiple delivery frameworks (SAFe, waterfall, etc.), with emphasis on lean-agile. They bring strong business acumen, communication, and collaboration skills, ensuring predictable, high-quality delivery across distributed teams. A problem-solver, they coach empowered teams, foster continuous improvement, and deliver secure, valuable solutions that delight customers. You’ll thrive in a supportive, engaging agile environment—expanding skills, sharing ideas, and having fun.

What you’ll be doing:

• Oversee overall delivery for 2-3 agile development teams including planning, execution, dependency management, risk management, release management, and stakeholder management.
• Facilitate agile ceremonies including daily stand-ups, iteration/sprint planning, iteration/sprint reviews, system demos, and iteration/sprint retrospectives.  
• Assist agile teams in identifying and managing/remediating risks, dependencies, and impediments.  
• Guide teams in the adoption, implementation, and maturation of SAFe practices, while supporting the overall SAFe transformation.  
• Support the Release Training Engineer (RTE) with planning, coordination, and facilitation of the major events and ceremonies within SAFe, including quarterly PI Planning, System Demos, and Inspect & Adapt Workshops.
• Partner with your teams’ Product Owners to ensure backlog priorities are adjudicated and that conflicts are resolved prior to and throughout PI execution so your teams can limit Work in Progress (WIP), drive quality, deliver on their commitments, and realize business value.
• Manage and optimize the flow of value using tools like Miro, Azure DevOps (ADO), Dependency Charts, and Team Kanban.
• Resolve and escalate team-level impediments, manage team-level risks, and drive relentless improvement.
• Foster a safe, collaborative environment where your teams can deliver on commitments while feeling empowered to surface issues openly and honestly.
• Ensure clear communication and alignment between agile teams, other Scrum Masters, product owners, engineers, UX, strategic content, Customer Success, and other dependent teams (may include waterfall delivery teams and agile teams who do not live on the ART).  
• Gather data from multiple sources, synthesize metrics, generate key insights, communicate team-level data within the train and across the business.  
• Support the Release Train Engineer (RTE) and other ART leaders with forecasting, resource allocation, and monitoring of spend. 

What we'll want you to have: 

• A bachelor’s degree in a technology-related field preferred. 
• 5+ years of related experience and 2+ years acting in a Scrum Master role while managing cloud-based software development, software programs, or other technical delivery.  
• Certified SAFe Scrum Master (SSM), Safe Advance Scrum Master (SASM), SAFe Agilist (SA), or SAFe Practitioner (SP) preferred.  
• Adept at organizing and leading outcomes-focused planning and problem-solving sessions within the context of an agile team. 
• Ability to help teams deliver code that is secure, high quality and highly operable at scale as part of a DevSecOps culture. 
• Strong technical aptitude to drive accountability and quality outcomes, while fostering collaboration across product and engineering functions.
• Experience leveraging, synthesizing, and clearly articulating agile metrics to glean insights on agile team status and maturation. 
• Experience working in an agile organization especially Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), or other scaling model. 
• Experience using agile best practices (i.e., burndown charts, engaging retrospective formats, defect management, well-written User and Enable Stories, ATDD, TDD, BDD, CI/CD, automated testing, etc.).
• Experience with Agile collaboration tools (e.g., SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Azure DevOps, etc.) 
• Ability to deliver work that meets expectations of quality, security and operability. 
• Able to work flexible hours as required by business priorities.

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Blackbaud powers social impact through purpose‑driven technology and responsible AI. Guided by our Intelligence for Good® vision, we’re building a culture where innovation, trust, and human expertise come together to help organizations make a greater difference in the world.

Blackbaud is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and is committed to maintaining an inclusive work environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, physical or mental disability, age, or veteran status or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law.