Head of Portfolio (Product & Engineering)

2 hours, 3 minutes ago
Full-time
Lead
Product Management
Arbor

Arbor

Arbor is the leading cloud MIS provider in the UK, empowering schools and MATs to collaborate effectively, save time, and enhance pupil achievement through centralized data management and insightful analytics.

IT Services
51-250

Description

  • Own and evolve Product and Engineering portfolio processes so they remain simple and effective as the organization grows.
  • Lead and coach a small team of Delivery and Programme Managers on high-complexity and commercially critical initiatives.
  • Track engineering capacity and provide data-backed insight to support risk mitigation, trade-offs, and future investment decisions.
  • Measure and improve the end-to-end product lifecycle to reduce cycle time and accelerate time to market.
  • Map complex dependencies and plan capacity to protect roadmap commitments across teams and departments.
  • Facilitate portfolio meetings and help leaders decide what to start, stop, or pivot based on commercial OKRs and data.
  • Support R&D leadership with business cases and scenario modelling for budget cycles and resourcing decisions.
  • Help autonomous teams scope work into sufficiently granular initiatives that can deliver iterative value.
  • Identify systemic bottlenecks across Product and Engineering and work with leadership to improve throughput and quality.
  • Own reporting systems that provide visibility into commitments without creating burdensome manual processes, and step in hands-on on critical programmes when needed.

Requirements

  • Proven experience directly managing Delivery, Project, and/or Programme Managers in a scaling Product and Engineering environment.
  • Experience operating portfolio functions during periods of rapid and significant growth without slowing development.
  • Technically fluent enough to understand product and platform engineering complexity, identify risks, and propose trade-offs.
  • Able to challenge senior leadership effectively using data to drive consensus on prioritization and resourcing decisions.
  • Strong belief that delivery ownership sits with teams rather than a central function, with experience enabling others instead of controlling them.
  • Highly confident configuring Jira or similar tools to provide portfolio visibility without adding friction.
  • Comfortable balancing commercially critical requests against long-term technical debt and platform stability.
  • Strong experience implementing new processes in a culture that values autonomy and outcomes over red tape.
  • Strong analytical skills and experience building dashboards that track leading indicators of delivery health, not just lagging metrics.
  • Hands-on experience steering critical programmes of work when required.

Benefits

  • Remote working arrangement.
  • Salary of £85,000 - £95,000.
  • 32 days holiday including Bank Holidays, made up of 25 days annual leave plus 7 company-wide days.
  • Life assurance at 3x annual salary.
  • Comprehensive wellness support through AIG Smart Health, including 24/7 virtual GP access, mental health support, counselling, and health checks.
  • Private dental insurance with Bupa and a salary sacrifice pension with Scottish Widows.
  • Enhanced parental leave, including 20 weeks full pay for maternity and adoption leave and 6 weeks full pay for paternity leave.
  • Dedicated professional development budget for CPD courses, upskilling resources, and professional memberships.

Interested in this position?

Apply directly on the company website

Apply Now

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