Head of Portfolio (Product & Engineering)

Location: Remote

Salary: £85,000 - £95,000

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. 

As Head of Portfolio, you will partner with Product & Engineering to drive our ongoing ways of working evolution, ensuring we become increasingly more effective at shipping customer value as we rapidly scale. You will achieve this through both your operational leadership and by guiding your team of Delivery and Programme Managers on the most critical initiatives.

We value simplicity and pragmatism over 'by-the-book' processes, strongly believing that delivery and reporting should be owned by product and engineering leaders, not a central PMO. Success in this role will require collaboration from the exec to the front line to ensure Product & Engineering deliver on their commitments, while relentlessly embedding a culture focused on outcomes, not outputs.

Core responsibilities

• Own and evolve the Product & Engineering portfolio processes, ensuring they remain simple and effective as the department grows in size and complexity
• Lead and coach a small team of Delivery and Programme Managers, leveraging them to oversee high-complexity or commercially critical initiatives that require specialized cross-team coordination
• Stay on top of Engineering capacity, providing data-backed insights to help mitigate risks, make trade offs decisions and seek future investment
• Measure and optimize the end-to-end Product Life Cycle to reduce cycle time and accelerate time-to-market, ensuring every initiative and milestone delivers measurable value impact
• Proactively map complex dependencies and capacity plan, mitigating cross-team or cross-departmental dependencies that threaten roadmap commitments

• Proven experience directly managing Delivery, Project and/or Programme Managers within a scaling Product and Engineering environment
• A track record of operating portfolio functions during phases of rapid & significant growth, without slowing down development speed

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)

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 careers@arbor-education.com.

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

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. 

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: careers@arbor-education.com 

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