[Hiring] Staff Engineer @Arbor Education

Role Description

Arbor has a large product suite serving thousands of schools, built up over a decade, with 15+ core product teams shipping every day. We have lofty commercial targets that require us to quickly evolve our systems and application architecture. We need a Staff Engineer to lead and drive this shift.

• Own architecture and technical strategy across our core products.
• Set direction for teams you don't manage whilst supporting R&D’s rapid evolution to AI-native.
• Spend time getting Leads and Product Directors bought into an approach as well as designing it.

Qualifications

• Extensive track record of delivering outcomes and leading across large, complex product suites, within a scaling and fast-moving environment.
• Broad understanding of software architecture, system design, and scalable integration patterns observed from a range of environments.
• Examples of communication and influencing across technical and non-technical audiences to achieve positive outcomes.
• An ability to support the growth of engineers and technical leads whilst still delivering value across distributed, cross-functional teams.
• Demonstrable experience working in an ownership culture where quality, performance, observability, and security are a core responsibility for every engineer.
• Deep experience guiding teams in architectural design, de-risking complex initiatives through MVP/0-1 thinking, and framework adoption.
• An understanding and opinion on how AI-first engineering will change the SDLC and ways of working, ideally with worked examples.
• Examples of contributing to or leading technical communities of practice (e.g. chapters, guilds, architecture councils).
• Practical knowledge of and exposure to some of our core stack or equivalent technologies - PHP, Node, React, Python, MySQL, AWS.
• Experience navigating between monolithic and distributed architectures with a pragmatic understanding of the value of each.

Requirements

• Own and deliver clear target architectures, strategies and roadmaps to support our product suite and strategic direction.
• Partner with Technical Leads to provide hands-on guidance supporting feature delivery, tech debt paydown, and architecture improvements.
• Collaborate with Product Directors to understand product vision and translate this into deliverables, aligning commercial and engineering goals.
• Lead our shift to an AI-First way of working, architecting new SDLC foundations and championing the latest approaches to help drive productivity gains across all teams.
• Mentor and coach Technical Leads/Senior Engineers on architectural and engineering excellence, continually raising our bar and supporting career growth.
• Act as a role model for technical leadership — work with pace, be pragmatic, and stay laser focused on outcomes not output.
• Head up architectural reviews for your domain and ensure all designs meet Arbor’s quality, reliability, security and compliance standards.
• Collaborate with Staff Engineers and Principal Engineers to shape Arbor’s broader technology strategy, working outside your domain as needed.
• Partner with Engineering Management to help grow teams, identify dependencies/risks, and report progress against strategic goals.

Benefits

• 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!