Location: Remote
Salary: £95,000 - £105,000
About us
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better.
We believe in a future of work in schools where being challenged doesn’t mean being burnt out and overworked. Where data guides progress without overwhelming staff. And where everyone working in a school is reminded why they got into education every day.
Our MIS and school management tools are already making a difference in over 7,000 schools and trusts. Giving time and power back to staff, turning data into clear, actionable insights, and supporting happier working days.
At the heart of our brand is a recognition that the challenges schools face today aren’t just about efficiency, outputs and productivity - but about creating happier working lives for the people who drive education everyday: the staff. We want to make schools more joyful places to work, as well as learn.
About the role
We are looking for an experienced and collaborative Engineering Manager (Ecosystem) to join our Engineering team and help us drive delivery performance, coach engineers, and ensure teams are healthy, engaged, and effective. The remit and focus of the role is to lead the delivery and development of engineers within the EcoSystem area, covering Arbor Workflows, API, and Group MIS. It’s a broad and exciting role, so we’re looking for someone up for a challenge - if you’re a good communicator and an effective leader, this is the role for you.
Core responsibilities
- Delivery Leadership
- Drive delivery performance across multiple teams, ensuring projects are delivered predictably and to a high standard.
- Lead planning, estimation, and delivery tracking, ensuring progress is visible and dependencies are managed.
- Partner with Product Managers to define priorities, shape roadmaps, and ensure alignment between product and engineering goals.
- Manage unplanned work and continuously improve flow, throughput, and quality using DORA and SPACE (DX Core 4) metrics.
- Support the implementation of agile practices that promote sustainable delivery and team autonomy.
- People Management & Development
- Lead, coach, and develop engineers and Technical Leads, fostering an inclusive and high-performing culture.
- Manage performance, support career progression, and identify opportunities for skill development.
- Promote accountability, collaboration, and ownership across teams.
- Ensure a healthy balance between delivery speed and long-term maintainability.
- Champion psychological safety and team wellbeing.
- Process & Engineering Maturity
- Continuously improve estimation accuracy, delivery predictability, and coordination between teams.
- Establish and monitor engineering metrics to identify improvement opportunities.
- Standardise delivery processes across teams while allowing flexibility for context-specific approaches.
- Ensure adherence to engineering quality standards, release processes, and best practices.
- Collaborate with the Staff Engineer and Technical Leads to align delivery practices with technical strategy.
- Cross-Team Coordination & Collaboration
- Manage dependencies between Ecosystem teams and other areas of the organisation.
- Work closely with the Portfolio team to report progress, raise blockers, and contribute to strategic roadmap planning.
- Partner with Engineering Leadership to remove systemic blockers and improve cross-functional collaboration.
- Collaborate with Product Directors to align product and technical roadmaps.
- Leadership & Culture
- Act as a key member of the STEM chapter, helping shape Arbor’s approach to delivery, people management, and organisational maturity.
- Represent the Ecosystem area within engineering leadership forums.
- Lead by example in promoting a culture of quality, data-driven improvement, and continuous learning.
- Foster collaboration across UK and Serbia teams through regular communication, shared objectives, and termly offsites.
- Accountability
- Accountable for team performance, delivery outcomes, and engineering health across the Ecosystem area.
- Responsible for measurable improvements in delivery predictability, lead time, and change failure rate.
- Expected to drive process improvement, increase velocity, and maintain a high-quality engineering environment.
RequirementsAbout you
- Proven experience leading engineering teams (5+ engineers) across multiple disciplines including Software, QA, and DevOps.
- Experience using DORA and SPACE metrics to measure and improve delivery performance and developer experience.
- Strong background in agile delivery (Scrum or Kanban) with CI/CD and continuous delivery practices.
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills across engineering, product, and leadership functions.
- Experience mentoring engineers and Technical Leads, and managing performance and development.
- Ability to use metrics and qualitative insight to identify issues and deliver measurable improvement.
- Strong understanding of engineering principles, systems thinking, and modern delivery practices.
- Experience working in distributed teams across multiple locations.
- Have excellent communication skills and the ability to build trusted relationships across teams and locations.
- Be comfortable presenting to large groups and representing engineering leadership both internally and externally.
Bonus skills
- Background in software engineering, ideally with knowledge of PHP, Node, TypeScript, AWS, or Kong API Gateway.
- Experience leading delivery for SaaS or API-centric products.
- Familiarity with performance and reliability engineering principles.
- Proven ability to influence culture and engineering practices in growing organisations.
- Experience working in an environment balancing product growth with platform scalability.
BenefitsWhat 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
- Life Assurance paid out at 3x annual salary
- Comprehensive wellness benefit provided by AIG Smart Health, which provides a 24/7 virtual GP service, Mental health support, Counselling, and personalised Health Checks
- Private Dental Insurance with Bupa
- Salary sacrifice Pension provided by Scottish Widows
- 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 and Bippit (financial wellbeing coaching)
- 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
- Phone screen
- 1st stage
- 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 protected].
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 protected]
Please note: We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.
