This small-but-mighty, mission-driven team prioritizes learning and career development to attract and retain engineers.
Scrum Alliance, a highly esteemed certifying body for scrum and agile professionals, was named one of the 2025 Top Workplaces for Engineers. As a membership association founded and funded by the agile community for the community, they offer education, advocacy, research, certifications, and practical skill development to help individuals thrive in their careers.
“We are proud to be recognized as one of the Top Workplaces for Engineering in 2025! As a former Chief Technology Officer, I know firsthand how crucial great engineering is to building modern products and experiences that keep pace with customer needs. That’s why being recognized as one of the Top Workplaces for Engineering is such a meaningful milestone for Scrum Alliance,” said Tristan Boutros, CEO. “Our engineering team is at the heart of our efforts to modernize our products, processes, and learning experiences, and their expertise and adaptability are driving the future of how we serve our global community. As someone who sees their work firsthand and knows what it takes to push robust technology forward, I’m continually impressed by their talent and dedication.”
Engineering.com sat down with Scrum Alliance team members to get a glimpse of what sets them apart. Here’s what we learned.
What makes Scrum Alliance a Top Workplace for Engineers?
“From an engineering perspective, it’s a great place to learn and grow, and that’s something that most engineers are looking for — that opportunity for continuous learning,” said Dave Mueller, software engineer at the company. “There’s a strong sense of collaboration here that leads to a lot of learning from each other. We have on our engineering team a lot of diverse technical backgrounds, and that gives us a wide breadth of collective skill and experience that serves as a pool of knowledge for our engineers to learn and grow in.”
Mueller noted that the leadership team provides strong support, especially for developing new skills or adopting new technologies to accomplish goals. That could mean offering specialized training, working with expert consultants and technology providers, or bringing in new team members.
“When we’re looking to bring on new people, we’re looking for that ability to work and flow in a collaborative environment, and that often means seeking candidates who have people skills, soft skills, more than just technical skills,” said Mueller. “We want those technical skills, of course, but it’s essential to our teams that we have people with good energy and good communication, and then we let the technical ability and the knowledge become fostered when those parts fall into place.”
For instance, as all industries continuously transition legacy systems and modernize, engineers must also continuously learn new technologies and skills. At Scrum Alliance, that doesn’t necessarily require a larger team but an adaptable team that can scale and transition with changing needs.
“The ebbs and flows of the needs of the organization change,” said Chetna Limbani, chief delivery officer. “Our strategic goals change, and so we do, along with our core engineering team, utilize consulting support, like a lot of organizations do, and it’s important for us to keep that culture and the balance. Even though that’s not necessarily permanent scaling, we are able to achieve temporary scaling as our needs change. And so far, we’ve been successful in being able to hire help when we need it, get everyone engaged like we all like to work, and then scale up and down as needed.”
Career development is a top priority
To keep engineers sharp and up-to-speed, Scrum Alliance has a designated professional development fund and offers employees the opportunity to select the resources or training they think will be most beneficial for them and their role.
“If you’re trying to keep your certifications up, or you want to learn a new technology, we have access to those funds,” said Mueller. “We just have to present what it is that we’re wanting to do, and as long as it lines up with our goals, there’s not a problem with us engaging in some specialized training or resources.”
Taylor Kelly, head of human resources, said she has the autonomy to develop people programs that establish a sense of belonging and a strong core engagement that models the company values.
“One of our key values is openness,” said Kelly. “We are constantly looking at our engagement survey and pulse survey data and report on that regularly, making sure that our employees are responded to and that we are taking their feedback and putting it into action.”
With a core engagement score in the 90th percentile, minimal turnover, and a budget for employee recognition, Kelly confirms that the way the executive and leadership team models themselves makes it possible for the company to live up to its values. And as part of its openness value, the company outlines career paths for each role so that team members can plan their trajectories.
“We have a very public and transparent career path for each role, so every single team member can look exactly at where they are in their career path, what they need to do to get to the next level, and what the salary ranges are, so that there’s a clear picture for team members going forward,” said Kelly. “We are a smaller organization, and so when somebody reaches maybe the top of their current career ladder, we really like to double down and make sure employees know that there are also lateral movement opportunities … that’s also another way to advance your career — exposure to different parts of the business.”
One obvious transformation across every industry is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to automate tasks. With increased automation, human roles shift and require more strategic, creative thinking.
“Soft skills, more creative style, software development skills, things like architecture and the higher-level skills are going to be where the value lies in the future because the raw coding ability will become less important,” said Derek Kershner, head of engineering. “If you look at those themes, it’s all about educating yourself to be the greater creative mind.”
Mueller added that AI shouldn’t go unchecked and still requires human intervention to ensure it’s doing its job.
“From a day-to-day working perspective, we’re seeing and using more and more AI tools for helping write code, and it’s not always perfect,” Mueller said. “Sometimes there’s changes that need to be made to it, or optimizations that the AI misses when it’s when it’s generating code, but for the most part, new people or mid-level engineers who are trying to boost their opportunities in the workplace are going to need to be more educated in the use of that tooling, and then also, like Derek said, have a broader sense of how to build and manage infrastructure as part of their daily work.”
Core values guide the day-to-day
In addition to openness, Scrum Alliance’s core values include respect, commitment, courage, and focus. Since its founding in 2001, this organization has prioritized individual achievement by equipping employees with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. Its collaborative, adaptable nature attracts engineers willing to offer their perspective and work together for the greater mission.
“A lot of big tech companies attract talent simply because their name is so big and engineers tend to gravitate to them. Scrum Alliance, in some respect, has that advantage in that we’re well known in the industry, and so many teams rely on or have people that rely on us for training and certifications. We enjoy a lot of that industry-wide prestige, and I don’t think you can get that without doing really good quality work and being engaged in the community,” said Mueller.
Alongside quality and community engagement, Mueller added that because “engineers talk, and word travels,” he advises companies seeking top talent to strive for excellence so that engineers rave about how great it is to work there.
“We’re a nonprofit, and we’re mission-driven, spreading the learning with an agile footprint. That in itself gives purpose to our employees,” said Limbani. “We are small but mighty, and that gives a unique perspective to everybody in the organization. Oftentimes, we find that people in organizations see their slice of the world here. People do have an opportunity to have a voice in all aspects of the organization. It gives the context of what people are doing in their day-to-day, and that in itself is pretty unique to our organization.”
For more information, visit topworkplaces.com/company/scrum-alliance.
Is your company a Top Workplace for Engineers? Submit your nomination at topworkplaces.com/engineering-com.
