Release Train Engineer

Project overview

Assignment Description

For the next 2 years, within the Mission Information and Decision Support action line, a new user portal, data processing pipelines, AI solutions, and other services will be developed for structuring, organizing, finding, and searching deployment information. To develop these services and align them with user needs and requirements, agile/SAFe teams have been established. The goal is to develop an Agile Release Train. To take the next step in establishing and further developing the ART and SAFe processes, a medior Release Train Engineer (RTE) is needed.

In the role of Scrum Master, you will play a crucial role in facilitating the Scrum process. You are the driver of team development and continuous improvement. You coach one or more Agile teams towards more ownership, collaboration, and results orientation. You stimulate the Agile team to actively work on their own growth and performance and ensure that concrete improvement plans are made - with clear ambitions, interventions, and visible progress and impact. This is to accelerate innovative impact and delivery to users.

You are a results-oriented connector who effortlessly aligns teams, stakeholders, and managers. You move easily between strategic objectives and daily execution, and you have the expertise to manage large-scale dependencies. With your leadership, a work environment is created in which teams collaborate optimally and deliver tangible value to the entire organization.

You are responsible for:

Background Assignment

The Ministry of Defence is organizing its information management as a basis for information-driven work, an efficient administrative organization, and compliance with the Woo and Archives Act. The Defensie Open op Orde (DOO) program manages this change agenda and carries out many improvement projects, from business transformation to IT realization. The main objective of this program is: Defence achieves an enhanced information position for improved decision-making and accountability. To this end, information must be accurate, complete, current, findable, and accessible.

The program realizes the structure for Defence-wide information management and supports the organization with knowledge, capacity, and technology to increase the maturity of information management while safeguarding the security of the State.

The implementation and further development of the mission information portal is essential for the Mission Information and Decision Support (MI&BO) action line. This action line focuses on strengthening the information position and supporting decision-making. The focus is on the importance of accurate, complete, current, findable, and accessible mission information and accelerating the OODA loop, so that better decisions can be made with a strategic decision advantage.

To achieve this main goal, the action line positions itself with multiple projects that focus on their own expertise: Unlocking Mission Archives and Mission Information, Supporting Specialized Search Queries, Quality and Compliance, and Enriching Decision-Making.

Generic Description Competency Area and Levels

Engineers software and/or hardware components to meet solution requirements, such as specifications, cost, quality, time, energy efficiency, information security, and data protection. Follows a systematic method to analyze and build required components and interfaces. Builds system structure models and performs system behavior simulation. Performs unit and system tests to ensure requirements are met.

Summary of Task and Mission

Leads and coaches an agile team. Creates a dynamic, high-performing team that minimizes impediments to development progress. Drives the team by applying the agile process to achieve optimal workflow through continuous improvement. Supports team goals and coordinates activities with other teams.

• Facilitating ART events
• from PI Planning to ART Syncs and Inspect & Adapt
• so that teams can collaborate optimally.
• Monitoring the ART roadmap, PI objectives, and predictability.
• Supporting risk management and applying ROAM in ART and PI context.
• Ensuring architectural frameworks and technical dependencies are integrated into planning in a timely manner.
• Stimulating continuous improvement
• at both team and ART level, based on data, metrics, and retrospectives.
• Preparing teams and stakeholders for PI Planning.
• Ensuring proper preparation of Features, Objectives, and dependencies.
• Facilitating planning, breakout sessions, and alignment between teams.
• Monitoring the coherence between team plans and ART objectives.
• Coaching Scrum Masters and Product Owners at the ART level.
• Promoting an Agile mindset within the ART and the Defensie Open op Orde program.
• Stimulating collaboration and self-organization.
• Helping to develop Agile maturity within teams and the ART.
• Identifying structural organizational impediments.
• Advising management on Agile working, flow, and organizational development.
• Facilitating the Community of Practice for Scrum Masters/RTEs.

Responsibilities

• The Help team improves and takes responsibility for their actions to implement agile values, principles, and practices.
• Support for the product owner in backlog management.
• Applying team-building techniques to improve performance.
• Continuously promote learning and professional development of team members.
• Ensure continuous improvement of software quality.
• Support team's self-defined processes and rules.
• Facilitate regular team meetings, including daily stand-up, iteration planning, team demo, and iteration retrospective.

Requirements

eCF Profile: Scrum Master

Reference Area: B.06 System Construction

This assignment is based on the European e-Competence Framework (e-CF). This is a European standard for describing IT competencies and the associated level of responsibility. The eCF profile indicates which competencies and at what level (e-1 to e-5) are expected from the candidate. We expect candidates to clearly demonstrate these competencies in their CV. This can be done by describing for each relevant assignment or position:

CVs in which the required eCF competencies cannot be demonstrably found cannot be fully assessed for suitability.

Additional Information

Hybrid working

Frequency of days working from home

On-call services

• the role the candidate fulfilled
• the activities and responsibilities involved
• the extent to which these align with the required eCF competencies and the level
• Candidate has at least 3 years of demonstrable work experience with the chosen eCF profile in a similar role.
• Candidate has demonstrable work experience within the Ministry of Defence.
• Minimum WO (University) education.
• 2-5 years of experience as a Release Train Engineer in a large-scale Agile context (preferably ARTs with >50 FTE).
• Demonstrable experience in guiding Scrum/Agile teams and ARTs.
• Leading SAFe® or SAFe® Practice Consultant (SPC) certified (v5.0 or higher).
• Experience facilitating Scrum events.
• Experience coaching teams towards self-organization and continuous improvement.
• Experience identifying and resolving impediments.
• Demonstrable experience facilitating PI Planning.
• Experience guiding multiple teams.
• Experience managing/facilitating dependencies between teams.
• Experience with ART Sync, Scrum of Scrums, and PO Sync.
• Experience with Inspect & Adapt.
• Strong facilitation and communication skills.
• Experience with stakeholder management at various levels.
• You can handle complex interests and conflicting priorities.
• You are able to identify improvements based on data and metrics.
• Experience with Azure DevOps, Jira, or comparable tooling.
• Experience with Lean Portfolio Management.
• Experience with Value Streams.
• Experience within a complex governmental or IT organization.
• Experience with Agile transformations

Project details

• Start: 2026-12-31T23:00:00
• Location: Den Haag Zuid-Holland, NL
• Languages: Dutch