Job Description

Job Title: Lead Consultant - Scrum Lead
Location: Chennai
Scrum Leader - Commercial IT (Solution Delivery)
At AstraZeneca, we don't follow the crowd and we don't expect our people to either. We develop life-changing medicines and make a difference to patients as we approach problems in a different way - agile and forward-thinking, and focused on what our people need to make ground-breaking discoveries and accelerate the development and launch of new medicines.
Our business relies on the highest quality data, modern analytics, and AI capabilities to turn ideas into life-changing medicines that benefit patients the world over. The Data, Analytics, and AI (DAAI) team within Commercial IT handles our data warehouses, ensures the highest quality efficient data management, and brings value for our business by making the data available across our company. The Scrum Master role provides a critical delivery leadership capability by combining Agile / Scrum management skills with an understanding of the technology and business needs required to lead delivery teams to ensure highest quality outcomes.
Duties and Accountabilities

• Scrum team management: Lead the day-to-day management of an Agile Scrum Team, coordinating key Agile events/ceremonies including Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, Backlog Refinement, Sprint Planning, and Retrospectives.
• Agile coaching and delivery: Coach the team on Agile principles and practices to improve Agile maturity and ensure efficient, high-quality delivery.
• Data & AI Domain Knowledge: Experience leading delivery teams on projects related to data management, data warehouse concepts, AI and ML capabilities, and platforms including Databricks, Snowflake, or similar.
• Tooling and collaboration: Use Agile tooling (JIRA, Confluence, MIRO, Team Retro) to visualize work, handle flow, and drive continuous improvement.
• Collaborator engagement: Communicate clearly with IT and Business collaborators to ensure alignment on goals, scope, and delivery plans; handle expectations and facilitate decision-making.
• Risk and impediment management: Proactively identify, track, and remove impediments; handle risks, dependencies, and cross-team integrations.
• Backlog partnership: Partner closely with Product Owners to prioritize and refine the backlog, including data and AI-related epics and features (e.g., data ingestion, transformation, modeling, governance, machine learning use cases).
• Develop team capacity and facilitate estimation practices (e.g., story points, efficiency) to ensure realistic commitments.
• Quality, security, and governance: Champion data and AI quality, security, and governance practices (e.g., metadata management, lineage, access controls, model governance, responsible AI).
• Global ways of working: Collaborate effectively across time zones and global teams, facilitating clear handoffs and shared delivery standards.
• Continuous improvement: Continuously seek opportunities to improve team flow, automation, and reliability; facilitate experiments and actionable retrospectives.
• Presentation and facilitation: Provide strong facilitation and presentation across technical and business audiences, translating complex data and AI topics into clear outcomes.

Essential for the role

• Agile / Scrum hand's on experience: Experience leading a large Agile delivery team--preferably as a Scrum Master--including coaching teams on Agile principles and practices and improving Agile maturity.
• Agile ceremonies and metrics: Demonstrable experience coordinating and leading key Agile ceremonies (Daily Stand-ups, Sprint Reviews, Retrospectives, Sprint Planning, Backlog Refinement) and producing/reporting Agile metrics (e.g., velocity, cycle time, throughput, predictability).
• Backlog management: Ability to partner with Product Owners to prioritize and refine the backlog, with a focus on data and AI-centric epics and features.
• Tooling proficiency: Experience with JIRA, Confluence, MIRO, and Team Retro.
• Collaborator management: Good communication and relationship-building skills with senior collaborators, able to bridge technical and business perspectives.
• Experience in coordinating resource management and prioritizing estimation tasks.
• Global collaboration: Ability to work multi-functionally with colleagues across time zones in a global organization.
• Risk and impediment management: Strong capability to proactively handle risks and remove impediments.
• Hands-on approach and attention to detail: Pragmatic, diligent, and comfortable operating in the technical and delivery details.
• Problem-solving and conflict resolution: Effective problem and conflict-solving skills.
• Facilitation and presentation: Strong facilitation and presentation skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ambiguity management: Ability to handle ambiguity and uncertainty with a proactive approach.
• Continuous improvement approach: Consistently seeks opportunities for improvement and facilitates measurable improvements with the team.

Desirable for the role

• Certifications: Project Management certifications preferred (PMP, Scrum, SAFe Agile). AI/ML certifications are a plus.
• Frameworks: Experience working with SAFe Agile.
• Industry: Pharma experience esp. working in the commercial business area

Key Relationships to reach solutions
Internal (to AZ or team)

• Customers and collaborators
• Members of the project Team
• Project Product Owners, Programme Director, Business Relationship Manager and Business Analysts

External (to AZ)

• 3rd Party Dev and Test suppliers

Why AstraZeneca?
At Astrazeneca we're dedicated to being a Great Place to Work. Where you are empowered to push the boundaries of science and unleash your entrepreneurial spirit. There's no better place to make a difference to medicine, patients and society. An inclusive culture that champions diversity and collaboration, and always committed to lifelong learning, growth and development. We're on an exciting journey to pioneer the future of healthcare.
So, what's next?

• Are you already imaging yourself joining our team? Good, because we can't wait to hear from you.
• Are you ready to bring new ideas and fresh thinking to the table? Brilliant! We have one seat available and hope its yours
• If you're curious to know more then we welcome your application no later than

Where can I find out more?
Our Social Media, Follow AstraZeneca on LinkedIn
Follow AstraZeneca on Facebook
Follow AstraZeneca on Instagram
Date Posted 27-Oct-2025
Closing Date 09-Nov-2025
AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills. We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be. We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics. We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.

Skills Required