Principal Agile Coach

This position is eligible for teleworking, which is currently 2 days per week. New hires are eligible to apply 30 days after their effective date of hire.

Opening:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is North America's largest transportation network, serving a population of 15.3 million people across a 5,000-square-mile travel area surrounding New York City, Long Island, southeastern New York State, and Connecticut. The MTA network comprises the nation’s largest bus fleet and more subway and commuter rail cars than all other U.S. transit systems combined. MTA strives to provide a safe and reliable commute, excellent customer service, and rewarding opportunities.

Job Summary:

MTA IT's Agile Center of Excellence (COE) is seeking a Principal Agile Coach, a senior-level practitioner with enterprise-wide influence, to lead the advancement of Agile delivery practices across complex, cross-functional product teams. This role is pivotal in shaping how Agile is applied and scaled throughout MTA IT, balancing hands-on coaching with strategic thought leadership to drive sustainable change.

Operating with a high degree of autonomy, the Principal Agile Coach will serve as a trusted advisor to multiple delivery teams and business partners, enabling consistent, high-impact Agile execution across a scaled environment. You will guide Agile teams, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and delivery leaders in applying Agile values, frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe), and engineering practices (DevOps, CI/CD) within a regulated and highly interdependent organizational context.

This role requires deep systems thinking, organizational acumen, and the ability to navigate ambiguity across multiple programs and domains. You will assess Agile maturity across teams and product lines, mentor key roles, and influence Agile practices and delivery operating models. You will also partner with other coaches and COE leaders to evolve the enterprise coaching strategy, uplift coaching capability, and support long-range Agile transformation goals.

The ideal candidate has a demonstrated track record of leading Agile maturity uplift efforts across a portfolio of teams, proactively removing systemic impediments, and fostering continuous improvement cultures. You are skilled in coaching across levels - from teams to leadership - and you bring a strong orientation toward delivering business outcomes through Agile excellence.

Responsibilities:

• Provide enterprise-level coaching across multiple Agile teams, programs, and domains, partnering with Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and delivery leaders to advance Agile delivery maturity in complex, cross-functional environments.
• Lead the strategic application and tailoring of Agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe) at scale to support organizational objectives and team-specific contexts.
• Anticipate and address cross-team delivery challenges by facilitating resolution of systemic impediments, enhancing team cohesion, and optimizing Agile cadences and collaboration rituals.
• Conduct comprehensive Agile capability assessments across teams and business units; develop and drive multi-team improvement strategies grounded in Agile performance metrics and behavioral insights.
• Cultivate a growth-oriented Agile culture by coaching for mindset shifts, enabling self-organization, and embedding continuous learning across delivery ecosystems.
• Champion Agile engineering excellence by guiding the adoption of DevOps practices, continuous integration/deployment pipelines, trunk-based development, and automated quality assurance.
• Architect and lead high-impact learning experiences including immersive workshops, basecamps, and leadership learning journeys to elevate Agile fluency across stakeholder groups. 
• Design and facilitate advanced Agile practices workshops (e.g., value stream mapping, team operating models, system-level retrospectives) to accelerate delivery outcomes and alignment.
• Coach product teams and leadership on managing scaled dependencies, risk mitigation, and optimizing value delivery across interdependent workstreams and release trains.
• Institutionalize the use of actionable metrics (e.g., lead time, flow efficiency, throughput) to drive data-informed decisions and optimize team performance at scale.
• Refine and evolve Agile performance dashboards and reporting practices to improve transparency, enable continuous inspection, and surface transformation opportunities.
• Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to embed continuous improvement practices into delivery norms and strategic planning cycles.
• Guide experimentation and iterative improvement through hypothesis-driven coaching and actionable data analysis, measuring impact and adapting strategies as needed.
• Serve as a strategic thought partner to Product Owners and Delivery Managers to optimize prioritization, stakeholder engagement, and backlog management practices.
• Educate and align business stakeholders and non-technical partners to Agile delivery workflows, fostering trust and shared accountability in cross-functional engagements.
• Provide strategic feedback to Agile transformation leads and senior leadership on coaching needs, maturity trends, and organizational enablers/barriers to Agile adoption.
• Lead the implementation and governance of Agile tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence) to ensure consistency, traceability, and effective portfolio-level reporting.
• Optimize digital workflows by configuring and improving Agile toolsets to support scaling initiatives, collaboration, and insight-driven delivery planning.
• Model and reinforce cultural norms of trust, transparency, psychological safety, and accountability across and between teams.
• Embody and promote Agile values and servant leadership behaviors that align with MTA IT’s strategic transformation goals.
• Mentor and uplift other Agile Coaches within the COE, helping to build internal capability and grow the organization’s overall Agile coaching capacity.
• Continuously refine and operationalize the Agile Maturity Model; lead maturity assessments and provide executive-ready insights on Agile health and progress.
• Facilitate and contribute to Agile Communities of Practice (CoPs), advancing organizational learning and standardizing leading practices.
• Partner in the evolution of the enterprise Agile Transformation Roadmap by surfacing insights, piloting new approaches, and making forward-looking recommendations.
• Monitor key Agile performance indicators and proactively identify emerging patterns and improvement areas; support teams in adapting delivery practices accordingly.
• Oversee the coaching strategy and coordination for a portfolio of Agile teams, ensuring alignment to organizational priorities and consistency of coaching delivery across MTA IT.
• Performs other duties as assigned
• Complies with all policies and standards
• May be required to work hours outside regular work hours, as applicable
• Observes the work performed by contractors, as applicable
• Reviews invoices and approves them if the work has contractual standards, as applicable
• Addresses performance issues with the contractor when possible, as applicable
• Escalates issues to other parties when needed, as applicable

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Arts/Sciences (BA/BS). An equivalent combination of education and experience may be considered in lieu of a degree.
• Minimum 10 years of relevant experience.
• Requires at least two certifications in the current platform/domain/technical skill upon hire. Possible certifications could be, but are not limited to:
  • Certified Product Manager
  • PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP)
  • Certified Agile Project Manager (IAPM)
  • ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Project Management (ICP-APM)
  • SAFe 5 Agilist (SA)
  • SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager
  • Project Management Professional (PMP)
  • Certified Change Management Professional (CCMP)
  • Business Relationship Management Professional (BRMP)
  • Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP)

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in Arts/Sciences (MA/MS)or in a related field.
• Minimum 3 yearsof Agile coaching and leading agile transformations.

Technical Skills:

• Expert experience with common developer productivity tools like Jira, Confluence, etc.
• Expert understanding of technical concepts.
• Expert in process-focused execution, having successfully driven technical programs for enterprise products in a fast-paced environment.
• Advanced in working with enterprise customers and/or business unit users.
• Advanced with product delivery.
• Familiarity with tools for data analysis and programming languages (e.g., Python or R) for data handling and analysis.
• Familiarity with business analysis or project management.
• Familiarity with product lifecycle management concepts.
• Familiarity with current and emerging technologies.
• Familiarity with agile methodology. 
• Familiarity with product management.
• Familiarity with MTA/Agency policies and procedures.
• Working knowledge of IT service development concepts

Behavioral Skills:

• Advanced active listening, attention to detail, customer service, prioritization, and problem-solving skills.
• Expert in working independently and strategically.
• Advanced expertise in identifying and analyzing risks and developing effective mitigation strategies.
• Expert technical knowledge and diverse skillset to understand various technologies, systems, and potential risks.
• Advanced critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Expert in interpersonal and verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively collaborate with both technical and non-technical peers.
• Expert in managing multiple projects simultaneously and prioritizing tasks based on urgency and impact.
• Extensive hands-on experience with related tools.
• Expert experience with working under pressure and meeting deadlines individually and collaboratively. Thinks logically, assesses problems, and is results-oriented.
• Expert in identifying complex business and technology risks and associated vulnerabilities.
• Expert in communicating effectively, both orally and in writing, to interact with team members, customers, management, and support personnel (technical and non-technical).
• Expert in establishing and maintaining effective working relationships with employees at all levels within the organization, and with both internal and external customers.

Competencies:

Other Information:

Pursuant to the New York State Public Officers Law & the MTA Code of Ethics, all employees who hold a policymaking position must file an Annual Statement of Financial Disclosure (FDS) with the NYS Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government (the “Commission”).

Equal Employment Opportunity:

MTA and its subsidiary and affiliated agencies are Equal Opportunity Employers, including with respect to veteran status and individuals with disabilities.

The MTA encourages qualified applicants from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and abilities, including military service members, to apply.