Scrum Master
What is a Scrum Master?
With this post about the Scrum Master (SM) profession, we continue our series of posts about diverse IT specialists. If you are considering changing your current career or obtaining a career and choosing what to study for a future job, the information provided here will be useful for you. Here we talk about the role, tasks, duties, skills, and average SM salaries in the USA, Canada, and India.
What does a Scrum Master do?
Scrum is an Agile working framework, establishing a minimum required set of actions, roles, and processes for quick and efficient IT product creation. It guarantees that the end consumer receives the functional product with new prioritized business features in the short established time periods called “sprints”. The SM makes sure that the team observes the Scrum culture and methodology. He or she should be also very agile to act accordingly to arising situations and use new possibilities for the bettering of the working process.
Scrum Master role
The specialist must be proficient in Scrum and be able to convey the precise roles, principles, and rituals to all participants of the project, programmers, testers, analysts, and others so that they would observe them. SM implements the role of Scum coach for the whole developers' team provides instructions and training aimed at the better comprehension and realization of Scrum principles.
Scrum Master skills
- Excellent grasp of principles of Agile/Scrum. You have to be able to answer all of the tricky questions about the procedures and principles, and of course, be able to implement them successfully.
- Ability to “sell” your ideas, i.e., communicate them clearly and convincingly to your team, customers, any person without technical, marketing, or Scrum knowledge. It is a crucial skill because SM doesn’t have power over the team members but has to assure that Scrum principles are implemented. Only a person who can persuade people can do that effectively. This is also needed to sell the team’s success, i.e., create an impressive presentation, praise a successful release, quality of the product, etc.
- Ability to negotiate successfully. One of the SM tasks is to identify and solve external problems that interfere with the working process. These could be anything, from solving the need for an additional server, integrating time tracking systems, buying bigger wallboard with markers for designers, or more convenient tables for teamwork, getting a coffee machine fixed, etc., to serious tasks such as solving the problem of the constant interfering of the company’s management in the working process, e.g., giving unrelated to the project tasks to the team members, and so on.
Scrum Master certification
The only way to become a successful SM is to perfect your Scrum skills and use them in practice. You don’t need any certification to get your first job. However, it would be easier to get a job if you have a psychology background or Scrum certificate. The most popular and reputable certificate providers that most SM and candidates choose: Scrum Alliance ICAgile Scrum.org
Scrum Master vs Product Owner
The Product Owner (PO) is a member of a Scrum team who knows everything about the needs and problems that a client wants to solve with the upcoming IT product. He or she works mainly with the client and has the vision of the final product, and sets directions, but doesn’t involve in the process of creation. The PO tells the team what should be done but doesn’t tell them how to do this. And SM ensures that the set goal is achieved without getting involved in the functionality of the product. If we combine the roles of these two positions, we will get the classic manager, who sets the tasks, tells how they should be realized, and controls deadlines.
Scrum Master salary
The median yearly salary of SM in the USA is $89,000. A newcomer usually earns around $68,000 a year, a specialist with several years of experience - $83,000, and an expert with 10+ years of working experience -$108, 000 a year. In Canada, the same position is rewarded with C$82,000 or around $68,000 a year. An entry-level employee earns around C$71,000 or $58,500, a specialist with several years of experience - C$87,000 or around $72,000, and an expert with 10+ years of working experience - C$98,000 or $81,000 a year. Indian companies pay Scrum Masters on average ₹1,267,000 or $17,000 a year. An entry-level specialist is paid around ₹580,000 or $8,000, a specialist with several years of experience - ₹893,000 or $12,000, and an expert with 10+ years of working experience - ₹1,500,000 or $20,500 a year.
The top IT companies offer the following salaries:
- Microsoft pays SMs on average $140,000 yearly.
- Google offers SMs an average salary of $157,000 a year.
- Amazon pays for the same position around $141,000 annually.
As for the salaries of SMs working for the same companies in India, we couldn’t find reliable data, but based on the average salaries these companies offer for outsourced specialists, we can say that they are slightly higher than the national average.
