Head of Developer Experience (DevEx)

Arbor Education; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 110,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Dedicated wellbeing team

32 days holiday

Life Assurance at 3x salary

Comprehensive wellness benefits

Private Dental Insurance

Salary sacrifice Pension

Enhanced maternity and paternity leave

Professional development training budget

Flexible working arrangements

Dog friendly offices

Job summary

A leading EdTech company in the UK seeks a Head of Developer Experience (DevEx) to lead efforts in enhancing engineering productivity and adopting AI-powered tools. The successful candidate will develop strategies for productivity metrics, implement an Internal Developer Platform, and lead a team focused on continuous improvement. This remote role offers competitive benefits and emphasizes flexible working arrangements.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in a SaaS environment.
• Proven expertise with IDPs and implementing them at scale.
• Demonstrable track record of scaling AI-assisted tooling.

Responsibilities

• Lead the adoption of AI-powered developer tools and embed workflows.
• Define and implement productivity metrics; develop dashboards.
• Own the strategy and implementation of the Internal Developer Platform.

Skills

Leading developer productivity initiatives

Internal Developer Platforms

Familiarity with developer productivity metrics

Introducing AI-assisted tooling

Technical background in software engineering

SQL/BI experience

Tools

Atlassian Compass

Snowflake

Job description

Head of Developer Experience (DevEx)

Base pay range: £110,000 - £120,000. Location: Remote.

About the role

We are looking for an experienced and forward‑thinking Head of Developer Experience (DevEx) to join our Engineering team and help us define and lead the strategy to improve engineering productivity, developer experience, and adoption of AI‑powered tooling across Arbor's product and platform teams. The remit and focus of the role is to lead a team to design, implement, and own metrics‑driven approaches to productivity; drive process and tooling improvements; and introduce an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) to enable engineers to deliver value quickly, consistently, and with high quality. If you are a strong collaborator and a strategic thinker, this is the role for you.

Core responsibilities

• AI Tooling & Process Integration
  • Lead the adoption of AI‑powered developer tools and embed AI‑assisted workflows into engineering processes, collaborating with Engineering Managers and Tech Leads
  • Identify, pilot, and scale AI tooling to improve productivity, velocity, and code quality across teams
• Productivity Metrics & Continuous Improvement
  • Define and implement productivity metrics; develop dashboards and regular reporting for leadership and teams
  • Design and execute strategies to systematically improve developer productivity and flow
  • Identify sources of developer waste and remove bottlenecks through automation, better tooling, and process re‑engineering
• Developer Experience & Internal Platform
  • Own the strategy and implementation of our Internal Developer Platform (IDP), likely Atlassian Compass, to provide self‑service tooling, templates, and documentation for engineers
  • Develop and maintain a service catalogue within the IDP in partnership with the platform team
  • Build and maintain templates, frameworks, and tools for rapid, consistent bootstrapping of new services and components
  • Utilise the Atlassian platform to provide joined up developer experiences
  • Support the integration of all product teams into a single platform
• Collaboration & Leadership
  • Partner closely with Platform Engineering to deliver foundational changes, before growing an autonomous DevX function
  • Advocate for a culture of continuous improvement, sharing best practices internally and externally
  • Over time, hire and lead a small team of Developer Experience (DevX) specialists

Requirements

• Significant experience leading developer productivity, Developer Experience (DevX), or Platform Engineering initiatives in a SaaS environment
• Proven expertise with Internal Developer Platforms (e.g., Atlassian Compass, Backstage, or similar) and experience implementing/operating IDPs at scale
• Deep familiarity with developer productivity metrics (DORA, SPACE, custom frameworks) and using them to drive change
• Demonstrable track record of introducing and scaling AI‑assisted tooling within engineering workflows
• Experience designing and delivering templates, developer tooling, and service catalogues
• Strong technical background in software engineering (hands‑on coding experience required)
• Proven ability to influence and lead cross‑functional teams without direct authority
• SQL/BI experience (ideally with platforms like Snowflake) to query metrics and data

Bonus skills

• Prior experience in EdTech or other regulated SaaS environments
• Experience leading or managing small technical teams
• Familiarity with modern DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud‑native patterns (AWS preferred)
• Track record of driving change in organisations scaling from legacy processes to modern DevEx platforms

Benefits

• 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

• Phone screen
• 1st stage
• 2nd stage

Equal Opportunities

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. We 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: [e-mail].

We are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.