Senior Product Manager (SAMpeople)

Responsibilities

The Senior Product Manager will own the product vision and roadmap for HRIS capabilities while collaborating with engineering, design, and commercial teams. They are responsible for translating stakeholder needs into actionable features and ensuring successful delivery through agile sprint execution.

Requirements

Candidates must have significant experience in B2B or B2C SaaS product development and a strong grasp of UX/UI methodologies. Proficiency in tools like Jira, Figma, and Productboard, along with a proven track record in agile practices and cross-functional delivery, is essential.

Skills

• SaaS product management
• UX/UI design
• Product strategy
• Roadmap ownership
• Agile methodologies
• Jira
• Figma
• Productboard
• RICE framework
• Stakeholder management
• Cross-functional leadership
• Go-to-market strategy
• Data-driven decision making
• HRIS
• Technical product ownership

Benefits

• Wellbeing team
• 32 days holiday
• Life assurance
• Virtual GP service
• Mental health support
• Counselling
• Private dental insurance
• Salary sacrifice pension
• Enhanced maternity leave
• Enhanced adoption leave
• Enhanced paternity leave
• Maternity coaching
• Financial wellbeing coaching
• Flexible working
• Professional development training budget

About this role

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.
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 structu...

About Arbor Education

Education Management · 201-500 employees · headquartered in London, England