Senior Product Manager (SAMpeople)

Location: Remote

Salary: £70,000 - £75,000

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. 
SAMpeople joined the Arbor suite in 2024 because we share at our hearts 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 believe that together we can make schools more joyful places to work, as well as learn. 
SAMpeople is a complete online people management system that works the way you do. From contracts and compliance, to managing absences, cases, training and CPD. It’s used by over 3,000 schools and growing fast. The next phase of our journey together is to bring to life our vision of a connected School Management Suite that takes our mission to transform schools to the next level.

About the role

We are looking for a collaborative and experienced Senior Product Manager to join our Product team and help us identify, translate, and prioritise the operational needs of school stakeholders into market-leading HR Information System (HRIS) capabilities and features. The remit and focus of the role is to serve as a key cross-functional catalyst, unifying engineering, design, and commercial teams to deliver scalable, compliant digital tools. It’s a broad and exciting role, so we’re looking for someone up for a challenge - if you’re customer-centric and a keen team player, this is the role for you.

Core responsibilities

Strategic Roadmap Ownership & Vision

• Own, prioritise, and implement the product vision, long-term strategy, and delivery roadmap for assigned user-facing tools and features.
• Translate high-level product strategies into clear timescales, milestone targets, and operational plans while proactively tracking potential project constraints.
• Partner with the CTO, Lead Engineers, and executive peers to commercialise and deliver innovative capabilities that support company growth.

Requirements Engineering & Backlog Management

• Empathise deeply with MIS users, translating their complex operational needs into clear, objective problem statements, epics, stories, and feature definitions.
• Prioritise backlogs, feature requests, and system updates objectively utilising customer usage statistics and the standardised RICE framework.
• Manage technical ticket creation and prioritise engineering tasks within software management systems like Jira, Figma, and Productboard.

Agile Delivery & Sprint Execution

• Lead routine sprint ceremonies, backlog grooming sessions, and sprint planning blocks in direct partnership with your Lead Engineer.
• Balance product quality with tight, on-time delivery schedules, adjusting execution strategies flexibly when needed to achieve short- and long-term goals.
• Take full technical ownership of delivery outcomes, monitoring pipeline performance data to extract continuous process improvement lessons.

User Experience & Iterative Design

• Produce structural wireframes and interface concepts independently to rapidly iterate on proposed software solutions.
• Deliver clear, measurable improvements to the core user experience and platform usability in close partnership with frontend and UX design teams.
• Evaluate application designs continuously to ensure interface modifications strictly align with modern corporate UI/UX standards.

Cross-Functional Governance & Statutory Compliance

• Collaborate cross-functionally across Engineering, Design, Finance, and Legal teams to ensure national statutory and regulatory educational requirements are built into product specifications.
• Fully represent assigned feature areas in all communications with distributed cross-functional squads and external institutional stakeholders.
• Identify and mitigate legal, financial, or technical delivery risks early in the software development lifecycle.

Commercial Alignment & Lead Enablement

• Develop a sound understanding of the organisation's commercial context, linking product functionality directly to defined revenue and upsell targets.
• Partner with Sales and Marketing teams to design and execute effective product marketing and go-to-market engagement strategies.
• Educate internal Sales and Customer Success teams regularly on product functionality, software adjustments, and new release capabilities.

Industry Advocacy & Insights

• Speak confidently at sales meetings, user forums, and national education conferences to represent the platform to school and industry stakeholders.
• Leverage comprehensive customer usage statistics and data-driven evidence to inform broader organisational goal-setting.
• Cultivate deep technical and operational domain knowledge regarding the UK school system to maintain a market-leading competitive advantage.

Requirements

About you

• SaaS Product Experience: Considerable professional product development experience operating within a B2B or B2C SaaS business environment.
• UX/UI Fluency: Solid, demonstrated understanding of user experience and user interface design methodologies, with the ability to discuss both expertly when challenged.
• Product & Audience Scaling: Proven track record of expanding a product's reach and successfully growing its user base.
• Tooling Mastery: Direct, hands-on proficiency using enterprise product management applications, including Jira, Figma, Productboard, and Slite.
• Prioritisation Frameworks: Practical experience utilising formal, data-driven prioritisation frameworks, specifically applying RICE methodologies.
• Go-to-Market Collaboration: Proven track record of partnering with Product Marketing teams to launch and execute effective GTM initiatives.
• Agile Practises: Proven track record of implementing, running, and participating in structured agile working practices and sprint ceremonies.
• Communication Excellence: Exemplary verbal and written communication skills in British English, demonstrating an ability to persuade stakeholders and provide compelling rationale for decisions.
• Execution Autonomy: A self-starter capable of working independently, taking complete ownership of outcomes, and adapting strategies dynamically to deliver results.
• Cross-Functional Delivery: Proven track record of successfully delivering results and features in close collaboration with distributed cross-functional teams.
• Mission Alignment: A demonstrable passion for improving the working lives of school stakeholders and navigating the fast pace of a scaling company.

Desirable

• HR/HRIS Product experience: Experience of managing and developing an HR/HRIS product would be highly advantageous
• UK Education Domain Knowledge: Practical, on-the-job working knowledge of the UK school system, Multi-Academy Trust (MAT) structures, and statutory educational data frameworks.
• Analytics Platform Exposure: Experience interpreting raw user engagement data within product analytics software (e.g., Mixpanel, Pendo, or Gainsight).

Benefits

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
• 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

1. Phone screen
2. 1st stage
3. 2nd stage

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.

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