How to land your first Scrum Master job

The job of ‘Scrum Master’ (SM), aside from being a guaranteed entry into the top 10 strangest job titles, also invites many questions to the job holder — and a regular question is: “How does one even get into a role like this?”.

If you’re wondering what’s the difference between a Scrum Master and an Agile Coach — sorry, we won’t be able to satisfy your curiosity. Feel free to browse further in Medium; there are loads of opinions about it.

In this article, we do aim to highlight some of the varied routes that our colleagues have taken to become an SM, as well as our top tips for you to try if you’re aiming to get into this role.

Stories from the trenches

For the cross-vertical SM community at the Takeaway.com brand of Just Eat Takeaway.com (JET), of which the authors of this article, Anita and Peter, are members, being an agilist isn’t about your former life paths or education and also not about certificates. It’s about having the right mindset and approach to work.

We’ve got colleagues from all kinds of backgrounds. One was a barista. Another one was working in healthcare. A few others started their journey as Customer Service agents. Of course, we’ve also got ex-project managers, devs-turned-into-SMs and other combinations.

So it’s all very well discovering that we have varied backgrounds, but how exactly did WE get into agile and land our first Scrum Master job, you might ask?

Check out our stories below, followed by five tips we offer you, based on our experience.

Anita Kalmane, Senior Scrum Master

Once upon a time, I used to be a Copywriter and was cooperating on a daily basis with several local offices, including loads of brainstorming meetings with them. While looking into how to improve the output of these meetings, I stumbled across the ‘Agile Facilitation’ workshop my company’s Agile Coaches were offering, signed up for it, fell in love with the easy framework and offered the ACs my help. They did need help and for the next two years I learned by doing and spent approximately half of my time facilitating various team bootcamps, vision sessions, brainstorms, and other events.

After leaving the company, I knew — I wanted to become a full time SM. While I didn’t land such a job immediately, I did end up working in a new company and development team. A few months after I started there, their SM left the company, I expressed my interest in the role and… got the job! The hiring manager had seen my work in the previous months and it was enough for them to know that I’d do a good job. That was a few years ago, and the rest of my journey is a story for another time.

Peter Kelly, Senior Scrum Master

I took a very technical route, having started as a developer in a traditional way-of-working IT department. After two years of working in this more traditional way the department chose to “go agile”. We were all split into teams of six to eight people, with an SM and a Product Owner. I really liked the way an SM would be able to impact work by analysing the team’s way of working, and always volunteered to run retros and refining sessions during periods when my SM was away. Fortunately for me, one day he was promoted, and I stepped into his role.

I really enjoy the way that I’m able to combine my more technical side and my tech experience, with the more human side of understanding why individuals and teams behave the way they do, and try to help them to get better, and become more effective.

Doenya Qachach, Junior Scrum Master

I studied hospitality management and worked in various management jobs, the last one being regional manager in the Netherlands and Belgium, responsible for about 18 million in revenue with a staff of 250 + people.

When I realised I wanted to make the shift to tech and away from management, I started talking to different people in the industry, including randomly messaging people on Linkedin and asking if they were open to a video call. There was only one person that never responded, and all the others were open to not only chatting with me, but also helping me out in many more ways. One of them also helped me get my interview at JET.

Besides learning and connecting in person, I also did the Professional Scrum Master 1 training, read various books (“Coaching agile teams”!) and articles etc. I think two things helped me in my interviews: first, being honest about the things I didn’t know yet, while also showing an eagerness to learn. Second, showing clear examples/situations of applying the needed SM skills (listening, teaching, coaching, servant leadership) from my previous jobs. I’d like to think this pulled them over the line to give me my first chance in this role.

Hargobind Wester, Junior Scrum Master

I was working as a Supervisor in the Customer Service Department at JET, where within a few months I moved from being a part-time to a full-time employee and was also training new employees. I had accomplished much in a short time but still felt stuck.

I was introduced to Scrum when a friend of mine working in IT recommended the Scrum Master role for me. The more articles I read about Scrum and Agile, the more certain I became that this role was a good fit for me. The contrast of supporting and empowering your team in an Agile environment, as opposed to the limitations of the more traditional management style I had experienced, was promising. The idea of fighting the same limiting patterns I so disliked, creating an honest and fair working environment and acting as a servant leader was inspiring, and a bit scary.

Thankfully the company I was working for was also looking for a Junior SM and after a couple of interviews, I was set to tackle this new challenge. To prepare for the interview, I read the official scrum guide and checked out different articles on scrum.org. I also looked up beginner tips, other people’s experience on the job etc. on various blogs and forums.

Our top 5 tips (because 5 is a magical number)

Tip 1: Think about WHY you want this job

Is it because you don’t like your current role? Is it because you see things that can be improved within your team? Is it because you think you can do it better than your current SM? And will it bring you satisfaction?

Or is it because you’ve discovered this secret answer to everything called agile and want to help implement it? Spoiler alert: agile doesn’t solve all your problems, but it does help to make them visible.

Whatever your motivation is, make sure that you’ll feel fulfilled in your role as an SM. You won’t have the power to change everything on your own. You won’t be a manager. But you will be that team member whom everybody is reaching out to, to uphold the scrum values and principles. And you’ll be the one bringing up unpleasant topics in your retrospectives if nobody else dares to mention them.

Tip 2: Apply agile practices in your current role and team

No matter your job or industry, we’re positive that you can already introduce some agile techniques from now on. You don’t need to jump right into working in sprints, but having regular alignments among team members and talking about what’s working well and where you as a team can improve are already good starting points.

Taking the lead in applying agile values and practices will not only help your team overall, but also let you gain practice, learn by doing, and figure out if you want to pursue your idea and start doing it full-time.

If you already work in a development team and there is an SM doing all of it, there’s no need to panic and think you can’t do anything. Talk with them and ask for advice and help! What kind of tasks can you practice with? How can you help them when they go on holiday, get sick or aren’t available? And is there another team in your company that doesn’t have a dedicated SM?

Tip 3: Network, network, network — start with meetups and webinars

If you’re an introvert (and loads of SM are), this won’t be your favourite tip. Our apologies. But you still need to do it — it’s not all roses.

We’re suggesting this for two reasons — first, you’ll learn new skills, both practical and theoretical, depending on what kind of sessions you choose to participate in. Second, it’ll give you a chance to meet like-minded people, connect with them and ask the important question ‘any chance that you’re hiring juniors?’. That way you’ll be already with one foot in as referrals are a real thing!

Where to look for them? Anywhere you can think of! Follow on LinkedIn agilists who speak to your heart. Sign up for Meetup.com and various agile and scrum groups there are. Google around — and you’ll find loads of free activities both online and offline.

Don’t worry about getting a certificate or going on an expensive training course — that doesn’t have to be the first step in your journey.

Tip 4: Understand the industry and decide how you will fit into it

Easier to say than do, this one, but it’s important. Different teams and companies have different requirements and expectations of their SM. Just as many want by-the-book SM as those who want something barely resembling what is mentioned in the Scrum Guide; some demand ‘certification’ and some (most) don’t care. The point is, there is not a one-size-fits-all SM mould and if you are looking to get into this role you need to decide what your style is. Is it someone who is much closer to a manager? Is it a metric-obsessive one? Is it a Scrum Guide SM?

Also, a job interview is like a two-way street, so it’s also up to you to ask the right questions and figure out the right match for you. Once you know what kind of SM you want to be, make sure that it matches what the company is expecting from you.

Tip 5: Demonstrate your mindset rather than your certificates

Some SMs have been able to create the role from nothing because they pushed tech department managers that it was needed and would be beneficial. Or, as in Doenya’s case above, she knocked on the door until it opened and she was able to show her potential, despite having no explicit experience in the role. Scrum has been around for twenty years but it’s still a way newer career path than most, with huge variations in execution, and many hierarchies are unsure how best to utilise the role. If you have the right mindset and give the impression that you can coach teams and individuals to improve, regardless of your experience level, that can be way more compelling to hire a candidate rather than one with a hundred certificates.

In conclusion

The SM is a really varied role through the industry, but it does have a few core principles, and they are all tied to the agile mindset. As such, if you’re able to demonstrate this mindset, a lot of companies will value this over the traditional qualifications and experience routes of most other jobs. We also hope that we have demonstrated that there is no one route into the role, and in fact, our varied backgrounds and different approaches make us stronger together.

We would love to hear your routes into the role, and if you are currently considering trying to get into the industry and you have questions, let us know below!

Written by Anita Kalmane & Peter Kelly, Senior Scrum Masters @ Just Eat Takeaway.com. Special thanks to Doenya Qachach & Hargobind Wester!

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