ICF Next

Scrum Master / Product Owner

ICF Next$89K — $183K *
Education, Government & Non-Profit
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent
  • 5+ years in product management, Scrum delivery, or Agile program management
  • 3+ years supporting federal IT programs
  • Active Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), or equivalent certification
  • 2+ years experience in DevSecOps delivery environments

Responsibilities

  • Facilitate Agile/Scrum ceremonies to ensure team accountability and improvement
  • Manage the product backlog and ensure readiness for sprint intake
  • Oversee the CIO and COR approval processes before initiating development work
  • Govern the release process and coordinate necessary deployment activities
  • Track sprint metrics and report on delivery risks and quality trends
  • Collaborate with cybersecurity and architecture teams to meet standards
  • Support various testing phases to ensure adequate test coverage
  • Identify technical debt and performance issues, integrating solutions into backlog
  • Prepare and present progress reports and updates to stakeholders
  • Develop user guides and training materials for product onboarding

Benefits

  • Remote-friendly with periodic onsite requirements in the DC area
  • Opportunity to work on impactful federal technology programs
  • Involvement in Agile practices within a collaborative environment
  • Chance to develop and manage IT capabilities that serve federal clients
Full Job Description
This role is contingent upon a contract award.

ICF is seeking a Scrum Master / Product Owner to manage the delivery lifecycle of digital IT capabilities for a federal technology program. Reporting to engineering leadership, this role owns sprint execution, backlog management, and release governance across the product delivery team. It is the connective tissue between engineering, security, enterprise architecture, and client stakeholders, ensuring that work is properly scoped, approved, and shipped on schedule.

The ideal candidate has run Agile delivery in a federal IT environment and understands how to operate within government approval workflows without losing delivery momentum. This role requires equal comfort with Scrum facilitation and product ownership. The right candidate keeps the team moving, holds quality standards, and manages client-facing governance without adding bureaucratic drag.

Job Location: This is a remote-friendly position with occasional onsite requirements in the Washington, DC Metro area.

This position requires that the job be performed in the United States. If you accept this position, you should note that ICF does monitor employee work locations and blocks access from foreign locations/foreign IP addresses and also prohibits personal VPN connections.

What You'll Be Doing

  • Facilitate all Agile/Scrum ceremonies, including sprint planning, daily standups, sprint reviews, and retrospectives, keeping the team focused, accountable, and continuously improving.


  • Own the product backlog, including story creation, refinement, prioritization, and acceptance criteria definition. Ensure the backlog reflects current client priorities and is ready for sprint intake at all times.


  • Manage the CIO and COR approval workflow, ensuring that business cases, project plans, governance mechanisms, and stakeholder commitments are in place before development work begins on any new capability.


  • Govern the release process, including coordinating deployments, drafting release notes, preparing release notifications, and ensuring that all parties have the information needed to support go-live activities.


  • Track and report on sprint delivery metrics and defect KPIs, using performance data to identify delivery risks, quality trends, and opportunities for process improvement.


  • Coordinate with cybersecurity, data, and enterprise architecture teams to ensure that application designs, integrations, and workflows meet security and architecture standards before development begins.


  • Support planning and execution of unit, integration, regression, and user acceptance testing, working with engineers to ensure adequate test coverage before release.


  • Identify and escalate technical debt, performance issues, and process gaps. Work with engineering leads to incorporate remediation into the backlog and delivery planning.


  • Prepare and deliver sprint reports, demo presentations, and stakeholder updates that communicate progress, risks, and decisions clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.


  • Develop and maintain user-facing guides, training materials, and product documentation to support onboarding and ongoing operations.


Minimum Requirements

  • Bachelor's degree or equivalent


  • 5+ years of experience in product management, Scrum delivery, or Agile program management in IT environments


  • 3+ years supporting federal IT programs, including experience navigating government approval and governance workflows


  • Active Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), or equivalent Agile certification


  • 2+ years working within DevSecOps delivery environments, including CI/CD pipelines and secure coding practices


  • U.S. Citizenship required due to federal contract requirements


  • Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust background investigation


  • Candidate must reside in the US, be authorized to work in the US, and work must be performed in the US


Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience supporting federal IT programs in HHS, NIH, FDA, or other health-focused agencies


  • Familiarity with federal IT governance requirements, including CIO and COR approval workflows for digital product development


  • Experience with ITSM platforms and Agile tooling such as Jira, ServiceNow, or Azure DevOps


  • SAFe certification or experience delivering within a scaled Agile framework


  • Familiarity with NIST 800-53, FedRAMP, or Zero Trust architecture requirements as they relate to product delivery


Pay Range - There are multiple factors that are considered in determining final pay for a position, including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and competencies that align to the specified role, geographic location, education and certifications as well as contract provisions regarding labor categories that are specific to the position.

The pay range for this position based on full-time employment is:
$89,261.00 - $183,610.00

DC Remote Office (DC99)

About ICF Next

ICF Next is a global marketing and communications agency that provides a wide range of services to clients in various industries, including healthcare, energy, and transportation. The company was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia. ICF Next offers a comprehensive suite of services, including branding, digital marketing, public relations, and social media management. The company has a strong reputation for delivering innovative and effective solutions that help its clients achieve their business objectives. ICF Next is committed to sustainability and social responsibility, and it has received numerous awards for its work in these areas.
Learn more about ICF Next
Size
8,000 employees
Market Cap
$1.8 billion
Industry
Net Income
$54.9 million
Founded
1969
5 Year Trend
+5.6%
Revenue
$1.5 billion
NASDAQ

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