Senior Jira Administrator / Subject Matter Expert

Senior Jira Administrator / Subject Matter Expert 
THIS IS NOT A REMOTE POSITION

Stafford, Virginia | Minimal Travel 

Work arrangement: This position is fully on-site in Stafford, Virginia. Remote work is not available. 

Position Overview 

We are seeking a senior Jira Administrator and Subject Matter Expert (SME) to support a Marine Corps acquisition Program Management Office (PMO) operating within a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The selected candidate will serve as the PMO’s technical and functional authority for Jira within the Navy Fusion Suite environment. 

Working with PMO leadership, Release Train Engineers, product and delivery teams, engineering and test organizations, cybersecurity personnel, platform administrators, and other Integrated Product Team stakeholders, the Jira SME will translate validated mission, governance, technical, acquisition, and reporting requirements into practical, scalable configurations. The role will use established Jira and SAFe practices as reference points while ensuring that the PMO’s approved operating model—not default tool conventions—drives significant configuration decisions. 

The successful candidate will recommend configuration options and clearly explain trade-offs involving usability, data quality, reporting, security, sustainment, and long-term maintainability. Solutions must remain supportable, auditable, and consistent with Navy Fusion Suite constraints and the PMO’s delegated authority. 

Role Priorities 

• Align Jira configuration with PMO mission, governance, acquisition, and reporting requirements. 

• Improve program visibility, traceability, data quality, and decision support. 

• Establish sustainable administration, governance, documentation, and change control. 

• Enable SAFe-aligned planning and execution without imposing unnecessary process burden. 

• Promote consistent adoption through responsive support, role-based training, and practical automation. 

Key Responsibilities 

Jira Administration and Solution Design 

• Serve as the senior Jira administrator and functional SME for the PMO’s SAFe-aligned implementation within the Navy Fusion Suite. 

• Administer authorized Jira projects and configurations, including workflows, issue types, fields, permissions, notifications, dashboards, reports, and automation. 

• Elicit, document, and translate stakeholder needs into scalable configuration and implementation plans based on validated mission, technical, governance, compliance, and reporting requirements. 

• Design work-item hierarchies and relationships that support approved planning, delivery, risk, dependency, milestone, and objective tracking. 

SAFe Planning and Program Execution 

• Enable Program Increment Planning, Agile Release Train execution, iteration planning, backlog refinement, dependency management, risk tracking, objectives management, and Inspect and Adapt activities. 

• Configure Jira to reflect the PMO’s approved operating model, acquisition lifecycle, governance structure, decision processes, and Agile delivery practices. 

• Participate in planning events, Agile ceremonies, Integrated Product Teams, working groups, and program reviews; provide clear recommendations on Jira capabilities, data, governance, and process improvement. 

Governance and Change Management 

• Establish and maintain PMO-level standards for naming, project structure, role-based access, data quality, configuration baselines, documentation, and change control. 

• Evaluate standard, tailored, and custom approaches; explain their operational, technical, security, reporting, adoption, and sustainment trade-offs to decision-makers. 

• Maintain a controlled and documented change process that supports evolving mission priorities while preserving governance and maintainability. 

• Exercise PMO-delegated administrative authority and coordinate changes requiring enterprise permissions or approval with Navy Fusion Suite administrators and governance stakeholders. 

Reporting, Analytics, and Automation 

• Develop executive- and program-level dashboards, advanced filters, JQL queries, and automated reports that provide actionable visibility into delivery health, schedule, backlog, risks, dependencies, quality, and Agile metrics. 

• Analyze Jira data to identify trends, bottlenecks, aging work, cross-team dependencies, delivery risks, and data-quality issues. 

• Implement authorized automation that reduces manual effort, improves data integrity, and supports consistent workflow execution, notifications, and escalations. 

• Improve reporting timeliness and accuracy, traceability, and visibility into program execution while reducing unnecessary data entry. 

Integration, Security, and Compliance 

• Support authorized Jira integrations and data exchanges with Confluence and approved delivery, requirements, DevSecOps, test, service management, collaboration, and business intelligence tools. 

• Maintain traceable Jira–Confluence relationships connecting work items to approved plans, decisions, governance records, and technical documentation. 

• Coordinate with cybersecurity, information assurance, platform administrators, and tool owners to meet applicable security, access-control, records-management, data-handling, and configuration-management requirements. 

• Escalate needs requiring platform-level changes, enterprise approval, or action outside the PMO’s delegated authority. 

Training and Stakeholder Support 

• Provide Jira support to PMO leaders, product managers, project officers, Agile Release Trains, Integrated Product Teams, and end users. 

• Administer user access, resolve issues, gather enhancement requirements, and coordinate testing and deployment within delegated authority. 

• Develop and maintain operating procedures, governance and configuration records, user guides, training materials, and administrator references. 

• Deliver role-based training, coaching, and technical assistance that improves adoption and reinforces PMO-approved practices. 

Required Qualifications 

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, business, project management, systems engineering, or a related field and at least eight years of relevant experience, including five years of hands-on Jira administration. Equivalent education, certifications, and directly relevant experience may be considered. 

• Demonstrated experience administering Jira in a complex enterprise, product development, software delivery, systems engineering, acquisition, or PMO environment. 

• Advanced experience configuring Jira workflows, issue types, fields, permissions, notifications, dashboards, reports, automation rules, and JQL filters. 

• Ability to analyze stakeholder requirements and design sustainable Jira solutions that balance mission outcomes with governance, security, data quality, usability, reporting consistency, and maintainability. 

• Experience supporting Agile teams and Agile-at-scale planning, execution, and reporting, with working knowledge of SAFe roles, events, and artifacts. 

• Experience developing executive-ready dashboards and reports, analyzing Jira data, and implementing governance, configuration control, role-based access, and user-support procedures. 

• Strong analytical, problem-solving, facilitation, and communication skills, including the ability to brief technical issues, risks, status, and recommendations to senior stakeholders. 

• Ability to work independently, collaborate across Integrated Product Teams and functional groups, and manage multiple priorities in a deadline-driven program office. 

• Proficiency with Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams, and SharePoint. 

Conditions of Employment 

• Must be able to work fully on-site in Stafford, Virginia. 

• Must possess or be eligible to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance. 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Relevant Atlassian Jira administration certification. 

• Experience supporting Jira within the Navy Fusion Suite, Navy Fusion Collaboration Suite, or a comparable government-managed Atlassian enterprise environment. 

• Experience with Confluence administration, Jira–Confluence integration, and connected governance or knowledge-management workflows. 

• SAFe certification or a comparable Agile-at-scale credential. 

• Experience supporting the Department of War, Department of the Navy, Marine Corps, or another federal acquisition, engineering, software delivery, or PMO organization. 

• Experience with authorized Jira integrations, REST APIs, automation, approved marketplace applications, data migration, bulk updates, or enterprise reporting tools. 

• Familiarity with defense acquisition, systems engineering, DevSecOps, configuration management, cybersecurity coordination, and program risk management. 

• Experience supporting PI Planning, ART synchronization, cross-team dependency management, program reporting, or adoption programs for large Jira user communities. 

Candidate Profile 

The ideal candidate combines deep Jira expertise with sound judgment, mission focus, and a practical understanding of SAFe-aligned execution. They collaborate effectively across PMO and enterprise stakeholders, distinguish necessary standardization from justified tailoring, communicate configuration decisions in clear operational terms, and deliver sustainable solutions that improve adoption, visibility, traceability, governance, and execution without creating unnecessary administrative burden. 

Salary Range: 

The anticipated base salary range for this position is $90,000–$125,000 annually. The final offer will depend on the candidate’s qualifications, relevant experience, certifications, security-clearance status, and other job-related factors. 

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