Job Specifications
Location: Remote
Salary: £80,000 - £90,000
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 Technical Lead to join our Engineering team and take ownership of system and solution design to ensure our products are robust, scalable, and secure. The remit and focus of the role is to mentor and coach engineers, embed a culture of quality, and help the team make sound technical decisions that deliver real value to customers. It's a broad and exciting role, so we're looking for someone up for a challenge - if you're communicative and a good team player, this is the role for you.
Core responsibilities
Define and guide system architecture, balancing trade-offs between speed, scalability, maintainability, and security
Work actively with the architecture community (ATLAS) to define processes, drive technology adoption, and share best practices across teams
Ensure non-functional requirements, performance, reliability, scalability, and security are addressed in all solution designs
Champion accountability from design through production by ensuring systems are observable and meet agreed Service Level Objectives (SLOs). Lead Root Cause Analysis when issues occur
Lead estimation and feasibility assessments, making sure plans are realistic and aligned with team skills and capacity
Contribute to structured release planning and communication, ensuring phased rollouts deliver value early (MVP-first). Support post-release reviews and retrospectives
Uphold coding standards and promote automated testing while embedding a quality-first culture in the development process
Identify and prioritise maintenance and technical debt, making its impact visible by translating it into customer and business outcomes
Mentor and coach engineers through feedback, knowledge sharing, and motivation. Foster alignment and help the team galvanise around technical solutions and goals
Work closely with Product Managers, Engineering Managers, QA, Designers, and other Engineers and Tech Leads to align technical direction with product strategy. Communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Requirements
About you
5+ years of professional software engineering experience on complex, scalable systems
Strong grounding in engineering principles and design patterns (e.g. SOLID, DRY)
Extensive experience with PHP
Proficiency with relational databases and data modelling, including schema design, query tuning and data management
Proven ability to design and deliver solutions using service-oriented or microservice architectures, including well-structured APIs
Hands-on experience with automated testing, CI/CD pipelines and containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes)
Working knowledge of a major cloud platform (AWS, Azure or GCP)
Familiarity with observability practices - monitoring, metrics and alerting - plus incident/problem management and Root Cause Analysis
Understanding of secure coding and compliance requirements
Experience guiding teams through technical estimation and providing input into release planning
Demonstrated leadership in mentoring and supporting engineers' growth
Excellent written and spoken English, and the ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
Bonus skills
Experience with enterprise-scale or high-availability systems
Agile facilitation (Scrum/Kanban) and continuous improvement
Exposure to DevOps/SRE practices (infrastructure as code, performance tuning, capacity planning)
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 se
About the Company
With Arbor, over 7,000 schools and trusts reclaim hours every week, see the data that matters clearly, and support their staff with the tools, time and insight to work at their best.
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