Manager, Agile Center of Excellence (CoE)

Overview

We are seeking a collaborative and hands-on Agile Center of Excellence (CoE) Manager to help scale and strengthen Agile practices across our product and engineering organization. This role plays a key part in enabling our product operating model—how we organize around empowered, cross-functional teams to deliver continuous customer value.

Reporting to the Head of PMO, this role will work in close partnership with the PMO to ensure alignment between Agile ways of working and enterprise planning, governance, and execution. The ideal candidate will be equally comfortable coaching teams, influencing leaders, and building a high-performing team of Agile practitioners.  The Agile CoE Leader partners closely with Product, Engineering, Design, and Business stakeholders to embed a high-performing, outcome-driven culture rooted in modern Agile, Lean, and DevOps principles.

 

Key Responsibilities

Agile Strategy & Ways of Working

• Support the evolution of Agile practices aligned to the organization’s product operating model and business goals.
• Promote a focus on outcomes, customer value, and flow over rigid adherence to ceremonies.
• Help teams adopt and mature Agile practices (Scrum, Kanban, or hybrid approaches) appropriate to their context.

Center of Excellence Leadership

• Contribute to building and sustaining the Agile CoE, including defining standards, playbooks, and best practices.
• Partner with Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters to ensure consistency and quality across teams.
• Act as a go-to resource for Agile guidance across the organization.

People Leadership & Talent Development

• Directly manage a team of Scrum Masters, including a mix of full-time employees and contractors.
• Recruit, onboard, and retain high-quality Agile talent to build a strong and scalable team.
• Set clear expectations, provide ongoing coaching, and support career development for team members.
• Establish a high-performance culture focused on accountability, continuous improvement, and collaboration.
• Evaluate team performance and ensure effective deployment of Scrum Masters across teams and initiatives.

PMO Partnership & Integrated Delivery

• Work seamlessly with the PMO office to align Agile practices with portfolio planning, governance, and reporting needs.
• Help bridge Agile delivery with traditional program and project management approaches where needed.
• Co-develop integrated strategies with the PMO to improve visibility, prioritization, and execution across initiatives.
• Ensure Agile practices complement, rather than conflict with, enterprise delivery frameworks.

Coaching & Capability Development

• Coach product managers, engineering leaders, Scrum Masters, and teams on Agile principles and product-centric ways of working.
• Support training and development programs to build Agile and product mindset capabilities.
• Mentor Scrum Masters and team-level roles to drive continuous improvement and consistency.

Delivery Excellence & Metrics

• Help define and track meaningful delivery metrics (e.g., cycle time, throughput, predictability, outcomes).
• Partner with teams and PMO stakeholders to improve transparency and data-driven decision-making.
• Identify opportunities to improve flow and reduce delivery bottlenecks.

Operating Model Enablement

• Reinforce adoption of the product operating model, including empowered teams, clear ownership, and iterative delivery.
• Partner with Product and Engineering to align team structures, planning cadences, and ways of working.
• Support continuous refinement of how work is prioritized, planned, and delivered.

Tooling & Enablement

• Support Agile tooling (e.g., Jira, ADO) to enable effective planning, tracking, and reporting.
• Help standardize practices where beneficial while preserving team autonomy.

Qualifications

Required

• 5–8 years of experience in software delivery, with strong hands-on Agile experience.
• Experience working in Agile environments within software or SaaS organizations.
• 3+ years of prior experience managing or leading Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, or similar roles.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate with PMOs or similar governance functions.
• Strong understanding of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban) and product-centric delivery.
• Experience coaching teams and influencing ways of working.
• Familiarity with integrating Agile practices into portfolio planning and governance structures.
• Exposure to DevOps and modern software delivery practices.

Preferred

• Experience operating within or supporting a product operating model framework of delivery
• Agile certifications (e.g., CSM, ICP-ACC) are a plus.

Key Competencies

• Strong people leadership and talent development capabilities
• Collaboration and partnership mindset, especially with PMO functions
• Ability to balance structure and flexibility in delivery approaches
• Systems thinking and problem-solving
• Influencing without authority
• Clear communication across technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Focus on outcomes, continuous improvement, and team effectiveness