Agile Coach

This is an environment unlike anything in the high-tech world and the secret of Costco’s success is its culture.  The value Costco puts on its employees is well documented in articles from a variety of publishers including Bloomberg and Forbes.  Our employees and our members come FIRST.  Costco is well known for its generosity and community service and has won many awards for its philanthropy. The company joins with its employees to take an active role in volunteering by sponsoring many opportunities to help others.  In 2018, Costco contributed over $39 million to organizations such as United Way and Children's Miracle Network Hospitals.

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the second largest retailer in the world with wholesale operations in twelve countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family, employee centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed. As proof, Costco consistently ranks in the top five of Forbes “America’s Best Employers”.

We are seeking a highly motivated and innovative Agile Coach to help guide Costco IT on their Agile journey. We are currently focused on portfolio management, value stream delivery, and role development in order to deliver outcomes faster, improve quality, and grow stronger teams. Working with a team of internal and consultant agile coaches, our selected candidate will have the opportunity to participate in this enterprise IT transformation.

Costco is on the path to unlock Costco IT’s full potential, which includes advancing our technology, and turning us into a more agile, entrepreneurial, and customer-focused business unit. We are redesigning our organization and how we work, which will improve our ability to deliver value to our customers.

Costco IT is responsible for the technical future of Costco Wholesale, the second largest retailer in the world, with wholesale operations in twelve countries. Despite our size and explosive international expansion, we continue to provide a family and employee-centric atmosphere in which our employees thrive and succeed.

If you want to be a part of one of the BEST “to work for” companies in the world, simply apply and let your career be reimagined.

ROLE

• Takes a visible role in a high performing Agile/DevOps coaching team; facilitates the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of Agile/DevOps framework, principles, and practices.
• Provides high-touch and hands-on team guidance, support, and coaches in close cooperation/collaboration across all roles and functions to facilitate increasing maturity at a sustainable pace.
• Coaches Agile / DevOps practices, techniques, and frameworks, such as SAFe, Scrum, XP, and Kanban to reduce the gap between Agile / DevOps theory and practice.
• Learns the business and acts as a dedicated trusted advisor to teams and leaders.
• Develops content; leads workshops and training sessions to educate individuals and leaders on Agile values, principles, and practices.
• Recommends, develops, tracks, and monitors Agile/DevOps metrics in areas that affect value-driven delivery.
• Encourages adoption of Agile/DevOps/ LPM practices to improve delivery, communication, and teaming skills.
• Instructs teams and leaders on problem solving techniques to identify organizational impediments to successful Agile transformation, and works with the leadership team to create effective strategies to overcome them.
• Fosters an environment of mutual respect, trust, collaboration, transparency, autonomy, innovation, and quality.
• Generates new ideas, supports change, encourages innovation, and helps to creatively solve problems.
• Provides courageous and sometimes challenging feedback to leadership in order to coach and help them find their way forward in the new way of working.
• Collaborates with cross-functional teams to assess the overall health of business agility and help them identify improvement opportunities.
• Partners with other Leaders, Agile Coaches, OCM, and Talent Management and Delivery Teams to help influence an environment of consistency and transparency throughout the organization.
• Serves as a change agent for teams across the organization for Agile/DevOps, SAFe, Kanban, and Lean frameworks; offers guidance and training on effective ways to use physical and electronic tools.
• Coaches teams to assess, measure, document, and communicate progress against defined goals and OKR’s.
• Provides strategic guidance for developing and improving program and portfolio prioritization, value stream delivery, and outcome measurement.
• Assists and participates in Agile iteration and release planning across the organization.

REQUIRED

• BS/BA in Computer Science, Business or equivalent experience.
• 8 years’ of practical Agile coaching experience guiding teams, divisions, and large IT organizations through the varied challenges of an Agile transformation.
• SAFe certifications including SPC, LPM, PO/PM, RTE.
• Experience in conducting Agile training (SAFe and in-house) to managers, executives, and teams.
• Practical experience with Lean Portfolio Management and Project to Program transformation including implementation of best practices.
• Intimate understanding of team and organizational metrics that help to move the maturity of the organization e.g. OKRs, pod, and value stream metrics.
• Mature leadership skills with the heart of a servant leader, high EQ, and deep level of empathy.
• Extensive experience training and coaching teams in the use of Agile tools. E.g. ADO, Service Now, Miro, and Confluence.
• Ability to facilitate discussion at all levels of the organization to resolve conflicts.
• Executive presence with skills at building meaningful concise presentations.

Recommended

• Certifications in Agile coaching and Enterprise Transformation.
• Executive coaching experience.
• Technical DevOps coaching experience.
• Technical background in software development, architecture, or program management.

Required Documents

• Cover Letter
• Resume

California applicants, please click here to review the Costco Applicant Privacy Notice.

Apart from any religious or disability considerations, open availability is needed to meet the needs of the business.  If hired, you will be required to provide proof of authorization to work in the United States. Applicants and employees for this position will not be sponsored for work authorization, including, but not limited to H1-B visas.