Staff Engineer (API & Identity)

Location: Remote

Salary: £90,000 - £105,000

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 MIS and school management tools are already making a difference in over 7,000 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. 

We are looking for an experienced and visionary Staff Engineer to join our Engineering team and help us drive architectural alignment, technical consistency, and engineering excellence across multiple teams. The remit and focus of the role is to drive architecture and technical strategy for our Ecosystem domain, encompassing API Platform, Identity (AuthN, AuthZ, Accounts) and Workflow Automation. You will have technical stewardship for this domain, working collaboratively with multiple teams, Technical Leads, Product Directors, and Engineering Leadership to translate strategic business objectives into scalable, and maintainable solutions. It’s a broad and exciting role, so we’re looking for someone up for a challenge - if you’re a collaborative and a highly technical candidate, this is the role for you.

Core responsibilities

• Own and deliver a clear target architecture, strategy and roadmap that supports the Ecosystem’s product strategy.
• Partner with Technical Leads to provide hands-on technical guidance supporting feature delivery, tech debt paydown, and architecture improvements. (Hands-on for this role means staying close to the details but not necessarily coding)
• Collaborate with Product Directors to understand product vision and translate this into deliverables, aligning commercial and engineering goals.
• 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, Principal Engineers, and Architects 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

• Extensive experience overseeing complex API or platform integrations, ideally across distributed tech stacks in a SaaS environment.
• A track record of delivering value for at least one core vertical within this domain - API governance, API-as-a-product, Identity or Account Mgmt.
• Examples of strong 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.
• Deep experience guiding teams in architectural design, MVP thinking, code quality, and framework adoption.
• Broad understanding of software architecture, system design, and scalable integration patterns observed from a range of environments
• Examples of contributing to or leading technical communities of practice (e.g. chapters, guilds, architecture councils).
• Knowledge of API Gateways and AWS with exposure to some of our core stack or equivalent technologies - PHP, Node, TypeScript, MySQL, SQS

Bonus skills

• Exposure to AI integration, automation, or intelligent tooling within the SDLC.
• Familiarity with education technology or other regulated SaaS domains.
• Have worked in a strong ownership culture where quality, performance, observability, and security are a core engineer responsibility

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!

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 [email protected].

Our commitment is also backed by our partnership with Neurodiversity Consultancy, Lexxic who provide us with training, support and advice. 

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. 

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: [email protected] 

Please note: We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.