Scrum Master/Data QA Engineer at Halvik in McLean, VA, USA

Job description

• Halvik is seeking a Scrum Master / Data QA Tester to support the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) IPNDS modernization effort. This role combines Agile/Kanban delivery facilitation with hands-on quality assurance for enterprise data pipelines and analytics products. The position will work closely with the Product Owner, Business Analyst, data engineers, technical leads, architects, and DevSecOps/CloudOps teams to maintain delivery flow, remove blockers, execute data-focused testing, manage defects, and support controlled releases across Dev, Test, and Production environments.

Responsibilities

• Strategic Execution: Facilitate Agile/Kanban delivery ceremonies and working sessions, including daily flow reviews, backlog replenishment, refinement, planning, delivery reviews, retrospectives, and blocker follow-up. Maintain Jira boards, workflow status, WIP visibility, dependencies, delivery metrics, and action items.
• Operational Oversight: Develop and execute test plans, test cases, regression suites, and release-readiness checks for data pipelines, data products, and analytics solutions. Track testing progress, defects, retesting, and exit criteria through completion.
• Collaboration: Partner with the Product Owner and Business Analyst to understand acceptance criteria and expected outcomes, and coordinate with data engineers, architects, BI developers, security, and DevSecOps/CloudOps teams to resolve blockers, defects, and release dependencies. The separate Business Analyst role will retain primary ownership of business requirements and detailed functional analysis.
• Technical Performance: Perform data-focused QA using SQL and analytical tools, including source-to-target reconciliation, record-count and field-level validation, business-rule checks, duplicate/null detection, incremental-load validation, rerun/recovery testing, and verification of downstream reports and datasets. Validate Bronze/Silver/Gold processing and data quality controls where applicable.
• Defect & Release Management: Log, prioritize, and track defects; maintain traceable test evidence; coordinate UAT support and release checklists; validate deployment prerequisites and approvals; and perform post-deployment smoke/regression testing in coordination with Data Engineering and DevSecOps/CloudOps teams.

Requirements

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Business, Data Analytics, Engineering, or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• Experience: Minimum of 5 years of combined experience in Scrum Master/Agile delivery, software or data quality assurance, testing, or related roles supporting enterprise data, analytics, or application systems.
• Technical Proficiency: Working-to-intermediate SQL skills for data validation and troubleshooting; hands-on experience with Jira or similar Agile tools; experience testing ETL/ELT, data warehouse/lakehouse, APIs, or analytics solutions; familiarity with defect management, regression testing, UAT support, and release validation.
• Compliance: Must meet applicable U.S. DOT contract security and suitability requirements and follow established change management, data protection, access control, testing, documentation, and release governance processes.
• Certifications: Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM), SAFe, Kanban, ISTQB, or comparable Agile/testing certification preferred; equivalent demonstrated experience will be considered.
• Demonstrated success supporting U.S. DOT/BTS, FAA, or other Federal data/technology programs; experience with aviation, transportation, or other high-volume regulated data is a plus.
• Experience testing Databricks/Delta Lake or similar data platforms, including source-to-target reconciliation, data quality controls, batch/incremental pipelines, SQL validation, regression testing, and production-release support.
• Familiarity with CI/CD and controlled Dev-Test-Prod promotion, Git-based workflows, test automation using Python or comparable tools, and collaboration with DevSecOps/CloudOps teams. Strong facilitation, communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills.

Skills

Required

• SQL (working-to-intermediate)
• Jira or similar Agile tools
• Defect management
• Regression testing
• UAT support
• Release validation

Preferred

• Git-based workflows

Benefits

• Company-supported medical, dental, vision, life, STD, and LTD insurance
• Benefits include 11 federal holidays and PTO
• Eligible employees may receive performance-based incentives in recognition of individual and/or team achievements.
• 401(k) with company matching
• Flexible Spending Accounts for commuter, medical, and dependent care expenses
• Tuition Assistance
• Charitable Contribution matching
• Halvik's pay range for this job level is a general guideline only and not a guarantee of compensation or salary. Additional factors considered in extending an offer include (but are not limited to) responsibilities of the job, education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity, alignment with market data, applicable bargaining agreement (if any), or other law.