Engineering Manager

About us

At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better.

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Heavy workloads, constant change, admin pressure on teachers and staff at every level… sometimes it feels like this is just part and parcel of school life today. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

We passionately believe that there’s a better way to work. And it starts by giving everyone the right tools and technology for the job.

We’re building a platform and products we believe in - as well as a strong, diverse team of experienced specialists, ex-teachers and Edtech engineers passionate about making a difference to the sector.

Ultimately, we’re here to help make our schools and trusts stress a little less, and focus on what matters most - improving the lives of teachers and outcomes of students everywhere.

About the role

We are looking for an experienced and people focused Engineering Manager to lead two of our cross-functional Engineering teams and to help us deliver features and functionality, as we continue to improve our platform for our growing customer base. The remit and focus of the role is to take line management of two of our engineering squads and lead on the delivery of their projects, so if you’re a champion for people development and best practice, then this position could be for you!


Core responsibilities

• You’ll work closely with the CTO, Heads of Engineering, and Head of Product to help define the delivery of the product roadmap, including resourcing requirements

• Ensure consistent delivery of features according to prioritised roadmap, ensuring consistent velocity, planning of utilisation, and capacity planning

• Contribute to leadership of engineering overall, helping to continuously improve efficiency and effectiveness of the department

• Perform termly health checks and updates to Skills Matrix, talent identification, and people related processes

• Lead recruitment and interview processes, ensuring adequate processes for hiring and retaining talent

• Ensure clear performance management processes across teams, and support Tech Leads in the development or performance management of their teams

• Provide line management to engineering and Tech Leads, and actively develop, inspire, mentor engineers and create positive, high-trust and accountable team culture and healthy working environment

About you
You will have a deep interest in engineering and leadership with a keen desire to learn and continually improve, both yourself, our engineers, and the lives of our users. Beyond that, we’d love to see:

• You will have experience using metrics to make data-driven decisions with regards to improvements to our delivery processes

• You will lead a mixed team of senior and junior engineers, split between specialist roles including DevOps, QA and Front-end

• Ideally you will have at least a year of experience leading teams over 5 engineers

• Have considerable experience of working in the software industry

• Are comfortable with public speaking, presenting to large groups, and evangelising engineering best practices

• Have good communication skills and a desire to work with others to find the best solution to problems.

• Experience of working in an agile environment, using Scrum or Kanban, with continuous delivery

What we offer

The chance to work alongside a team of hard-working, passionate people in a role where you’ll see the impact of your work everyday. We also offer:

• A dedicated wellbeing team who champion initiatives such as mindfulness, lunch n learns, manager training, mental health first aid training and much more!

• 32 days holiday (plus Bank Holidays). This is made up of 25 days annual leave plus 7 extra company wide days given over Easter, Summer & Christmas

• Enhanced maternity and adoption leave (20 weeks full pay) and paternity (6 weeks full pay) pay

• 5 free return to work maternity coaching sessions, helping you adapt to this new exciting time of life!

• Access to services such as Calm, Bippit (financial wellbeing coaching) and Health Assured (Employee assistance programme)

• All of our roles champion flexible working and we are happy to discuss what this means to you!

• Social committees that plan team, office and company wide events to bring people together and celebrate success

• Dedicated professional development training budget (CPD courses, upskilling resources, professional memberships etc)

• Volunteer with a charity of your choice for a day each year

• Dog friendly offices!

Interview process

1. Phone screen

2. 1st stage

3. 2nd stage

We are committed to a fair and comfortable recruitment process, so if you require any reasonable adjustments during your application or interview process, please reach out to a member of the team at [email removed - click apply for more details].

Our commitment is also backed by our partnership with Neurodiversity Consultancy, Lexxic who provide us with training, support and advice.

Arbor Education is an equal opportunities organisation

Our goal is for Arbor to be a workplace which represents, celebrates and supports people from all backgrounds, and which gives them the tools they need to thrive - whatever their ambitions may be so we support and promote diversity and equality, and actively encourage applications from people of all backgrounds.

Refer a friend: Know someone else who would be good for this role? You can refer a friend, family member or colleague, if they are offered a role with Arbor, we will say thank you with a voucher valued up to £200! Simply email: [email removed - click apply for more details]

Please note: We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.