Summary
Principal Product Manager responsible for creating and owning the product and commercial strategy for a core domain at Arbor Education, a school management software company. This senior individual contributor role involves leading the transformation of established products while maintaining strategic autonomy and impact across the product organization.
Job Description
Location: Remote, UK
Salary: up to £100,000 per annum
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 School Management Tools are already making a difference in over 12,500 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 a highly strategic and experienced Principal Product Manager to join our product team. This role is for a seasoned individual contributor who will operate at the most senior level within the product management function. You will be responsible for creating and owning the product and commercial strategy for one of our core domains, tackling wide and complex problem spaces with a high degree of autonomy.
The ideal candidate is a proactive, data-driven individual who is comfortable with ambiguity, a master of stakeholder management, and a confident leader who can drive significant impact without direct authority. You'll be a key voice in shaping not just the product, but the strategic direction of your domain and the wider product organisation.
We're looking for someone with experience in replatforming and migrating existing customer bases. The ideal candidate will also be familiar with building products using machine learning, and be able to understand complex domains and the challenges of a current product and its customer base. You'll be able to step back and abstract the core problems customers face when thinking about new functionality.
What the role looks like on a day to day basis
On day one, you'll be taking ownership over TimeTabler - a mature, on-premise product used by hundreds/thousands of schools and supported by a lean, focused development team. Alongside that, you'll be called upon to collaborate on projects across our product portfolio, applying your product practice expertise to some of our more interesting challenges. It's a role that suits someone who finds satisfaction in leading the transformation of established products for the betterment of their users, while staying curious and flexible enough to contribute wherever you can make an impact.
Core responsibilities
- Own the product vision and roadmap for a core domain, maintaining a pragmatic and customer-grounded strategy that balances the needs of an established product with longer-term business goals.
- Lead discovery within your core domain, and contribute structured product thinking to wider initiatives across the business portfolio as opportunities arise, combining opportunities and hypotheses with a deep understanding of customer needs, the market, and commercial viability.
- Contribute product expertise across the wider team, and help embed strong product practices — including supporting the team's development of agentic ways of working.
- Champion a user-centric approach by leading cross-functional teams (including engineering, design, and commercial) to identify, test, and validate product solutions.
- Use data to measure and communicate the impact of your product work, and contribute to outcome-focused conversations across the broader portfolio.
- Proactively influence stakeholders, including a wide range of senior internal and external stakeholders, ensuring alignment on product vision, strategy, and roadmap.
- Maintain and communicate a deep contextual awareness of the business, the edtech landscape, and user needs, acting as a strategic expert for your domain.
About you
We’re looking for a highly independent and strategic product manager who can navigate complex domains and stakeholder landscapes with confidence and clarity. In addition, we'd love to see:
- Significant experience as an expert in product management and leadership, particularly in highly complex or data related domains
- Experience in maintaining products within complex technical domains
- Solid experience in product management, including maintaining and improving established products in technically complex environments
- Familiarity with the challenges of legacy or on-premise products, and an understanding of what modernisation journeys involve
- The ability to create and articulate impactful narratives and communicate complex concepts with clarity to inspire and align a wide range of audiences, from your team to executive leadership.
- Proven experience in driving transformative change in products based on a forward-looking understanding of customer needs and commercial opportunities.
- A track record of delivering significant business results and leading initiatives that redefine success for the organization.
- A growth mindset and a resilient approach to navigating critical business challenges and shaping the perspective of others.
- A passion for building products that make a real difference to the working lives of people in schools.
- An interest in, or experience of, contributing product management thinking to AI-assisted or agentic workflows - helping shape how product practices evolve alongside new ways of working.
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
Interview process
- Phone screen
- 1st stage interview
- 2nd stage with presentation
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.
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: careers@arbor-education.com
Please note: We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.
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