Product Director

Location: Remote 

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 strategic and results-oriented Product Director to lead SAMpeople (HRIS, ATS product and integrations). This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for defining the long-term vision and ensuring the successful execution of our product strategy.

You will sit at the intersection of business goals, technical feasibility, and user needs, managing a high-performing team to deliver scalable solutions that drive growth and adoption. Reporting directly to the CPO, you will be a key voice in shaping the future of our ecosystem.

Core responsibilities

• Strategic Vision: Translate the company’s high-level mission into a concrete product strategy and actionable roadmap.
• AI enabled Product Lifecycle Management: Collaborate with the wider R&D leadership team across the suite on our ongoing AI transformation. Champion the end-to-end lifecycle of SAMpeople becoming AI enabled across the SDLC. 
• Team Leadership & Mentorship: Lead, hire, and develop a team of Product Managers. Foster a culture of high performance, continuous learning, and user-centricity.
• Commercial & Data Acumen: Build a strong understanding of the commercial strategy within the product team, and what they must do to deliver on it, while continuing to improve NPS. 
• Cross-Functional Orchestration: Work closely with Go-To-Market (GTM) teams to ensure product launches are supported by strong marketing, sales enablement, and customer success strategies.

Requirements

About you

We’re looking for a product leader who thrives in ambiguity and has a proven track record of leading product teams through rapid scale-up and organisational change. You should be knowledgeable and excited about how AI could transform our ways of working, and be open to rapidly learning and iterating to improve how efficiently we can deliver both user and business outcomes. Beyond that, we’d love to see:

• Proven Leadership: Significant and demonstrable experience in Product Leadership. 
• Scale Experience: A track record of successfully managing products through high-growth phases.
• Stakeholder Mastery: Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence C-suite executives and technical leads alike.
• Outcomes Mindset: Comfortable creating clarity of direction for your team through concrete measurable outcomes, for which you put the structures in place to measure and are able to hold your team accountable.
• Resilience & Adaptability: Experience navigating ambiguity and leading teams through change or organizational scaling.

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 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!

Interview process

1. Phone screen
2. 1st stage
3. 2nd stage

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.