Agile Coach

Job Title: Agile Coach

Location: Wilmslow / Remote (UK)

Reports to: VP Engineering

Role Purpose

The Citation Group is a diverse, fast-growing technology business. Our teams span multiple brands, geographies and products. The purpose of this role is to build teams that can create and sustain their own high performance - by continually raising the bar and building lasting capability.

You will work closely with teams, Tech Leads, Engineering Managers, Product Owners and Product Directors, and engage with senior technology and product leadership on strategic questions. This role suits someone energised by complexity, who holds themselves and others to a high standard.

Key Responsibilities

Coaching for Elite Performance

• Operate in and across a range of teams - identifying systemic patterns, structural blockers and cultural dynamics that limit performance, and working with leadership to address them

• Work with teams to build a shared picture of what elite performance looks like, and create the conditions for change

• Coach individuals on ways of working, mindset and behaviours

Transformational Change and Systems Thinking

• Understand the system before trying to change it - map the factors that drive behaviour and intervene at the right level

• Be a change agent: build compelling narratives, win stakeholder confidence, and sustain momentum through resistance

• Challenge with honesty and courage - name what others won't, and hold up a mirror as readily as offering a hand

• Adapt your approach to the context: a new team on a legacy stack needs something different from a mature product squad

• Understand how AI is reshaping software development and engineering practice - coach teams and leaders through that change, helping them adapt ways of working, build new capabilities, and think clearly about where AI creates opportunity or risk

Operating Across the Full Coaching Spectrum

• Move fluidly between coaching, mentoring, teaching, facilitating and consulting - applying the right mode rather than defaulting to one

• Design and deliver workshops and training

Managing Flow and Continuous Delivery

• Flow thinking, value stream mapping and the practices that enable fast, reliable flow

• Use flow metrics as coaching tools to surface constraints and drive improvement conversations

• Be a credible advocate for continuous delivery: help teams break free from heavyweight release processes

• Partner with Tech Leads and Engineering Managers on DevOps culture and the conditions that make continuous improvement real

Outcome Focus

• Connect team activity to real business, customer and colleague outcomes - not just outputs

• Use data to surface improvement opportunities and track meaningful change

• Define what success looks like, track it honestly, and adjust when the evidence calls for it

Required Experience and Skills

Experience

• Significant experience as an agile coach working across multiple teams - comfortable at team level and equally so with senior product and technology leaders

• A track record of driving sustained improvement - evidenced by outcomes, not activities

• Experience working across genuinely diverse contexts - different team cultures, geographies, languages and technology landscapes; able to adapt and build trust

Coaching and Change

• Range across the full coaching spectrum - coaching, mentoring, teaching, facilitating and consulting - with the judgement to know which to apply

• Systems thinking: sees the whole before acting on the parts; understands complexity, organisational dynamics and how change actually happens

• Courage to challenge upward - names uncomfortable truths in a way that builds rather than breaks relationships

• Experience driving change in complex organisations: M&A environments, multi-brand structures, or wide variation in team maturity

• Awareness and understanding of how AI is changing software development - and experience helping teams and organisations navigate that shift

Engineering and Flow

• Genuine depth in flow, DevOps and continuous delivery - credible with senior engineers, coaching on practice not just principle

• Familiarity with flow metrics and the engineering conditions that enable fast, safe delivery

• Comfortable at the intersection of people, process and technology

Behavioural

• Intellectually curious: thinks rigorously and brings fresh perspectives rather than recycled frameworks

• Adaptable: reads context quickly and is as effective with a newly acquired team as with a mature one

• High standards: has a clear view of what great looks like and cares when things fall short

• Courageous: says the difficult thing and does not mistake harmony for health

• Outcome-driven: measures success by what changes, not what was delivered

About Us

We are Citation. We are far from your average service provider. Our colleagues bring their brilliant selves to work every day and we create an environment where they can shine. We are a nice bunch. We don’t do office politics or “that’s not my job”. We listen, support and take ownership.

We have been proudly delivering valuable HR and Health and Safety services to SME’s across the UK for over 20 years. Passionate about service, we’re on a mission to revolutionise our colleague’s and client’s experience by employing brilliant people who are experts at what they do and smile whilst they are doing it.

Working for Citation you will have access to 25 days holiday, plus your birthday off work, gym membership discount, healthcare, childcare vouchers, the opportunity to purchase extra leave, pension contributions and more.

It’s a great place to work because of the people we employ. Fun and professional, we want likeminded individuals who love to love their job (no ‘mood hoovers’ here thanks!) and want the Company to succeed.

So, if our culture sounds like a good fit for you and you want to be part of our success story, then send us your details.