At SAMpeople, we are on a mission to transform holistic HR and payroll management for the education sector—saving schools time, reducing overheads, and letting staff focus on what matters most.
As our Technical Business Analyst (Payroll), you will play a critical, highly collaborative role in bridging the gap between our payroll stakeholders and our brilliant technical teams. Your mission is to translate complex payroll requirements, market opportunities, and regulatory landscapes into highly detailed functional specifications and seamless process workflows.
You’ll ensure that our SAMpeople payroll and transactional tools are scalable, secure, and incredibly accurate—ultimately removing heavy administrative burdens from school staff across the UK.
ResponsibilitiesRequirement Elicitation & Strategic Alignment
- Partner with the Head of Payroll to challenge, shape, and deliver features that align with SAMpeople's strategic business goals.
- Define clear problem statements and hypotheses based on payroll stakeholder feedback and regulatory research, ensuring every initiative delivers measurable value.
- Proactively map and manage functional cross-team dependencies to keep development cycles running smoothly and risk-free.
Requirement Engineering & Technical Specification
- Decompose high-level strategic initiatives into detailed user stories, comprehensive functional specifications, and rigorous acceptance criteria.
- Document complex current and future-state workflows using data flow diagrams, sequence diagrams, and process models.
- Establish precise business rules, data validations, and error-handling scenarios to guide the engineering team toward robust, high-quality technical builds.
Risk, Security & Compliance Safeguarding
- Validate the technical feasibility of potential solutions early by partnering with Engineering and Product Design to isolate architectural assumptions and risks.
- Audit and align product requirements with strict data protection regulations and industry-standard payment security frameworks (including PCI compliance).
Technical Implementation & Escalation
- Coordinate iterative development cycles alongside the Head of Payroll, actively driving agile ceremonies to optimise team delivery velocity.
- Triage escalated bugs, complex functional queries, and high-priority business issues as the primary technical point of contact.
- Partner with the Head of Payroll to strike the perfect balance between maintenance work, technical debt, and exciting new functional enhancements.
Requirements
Essential:
- Technical BA Expertise: Proven experience operating as a technical business analyst embedded inside cross-functional engineering, design, and customer success teams.
- Domain Knowledge: Strong experience directly developing, enhancing, or managing dedicated payments or payroll software products.
- Analytical Capabilities: A proven track record of mapping complex technical requirements across multiple domains using data flow and sequence diagrams.
- Communication Mastery: Exemplary written and verbal communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to persuade stakeholders and provide clear, compelling rationales.
- Data-Led Approach: The ability to leverage data, metrics, and targeted user research to make informed, objective decisions.
- Agile Proficiency: Comfortable navigating high-velocity, highly collaborative environments using agile frameworks and iterative sprint delivery.
Nice-to-Haves:
- Sector Background: Background or prior experience working specifically within the Payments, Finance, or EdTech industry sectors.
- Tech Adaptability: Experience working and thriving within fast-paced, AI-native workflow environments.
Benefits
We offer a supportive environment where wellbeing and professional growth are prioritised. Benefits include:
- Leave: 24 days annual leave, 8 bank holidays, plus your birthday off.
- Health: BUPA Healthcare Cashback Plan and free flu vaccines.
- Perks: Free on-site parking, free barista coffee, fresh fruit, and weekly snacks.
- Flexibility: Hybrid working options and time off for special events (nativities, graduations, etc.).
- Development: A clear career pathway from the moment you join.
Skills Required
- Proven experience as a technical business analyst embedded within cross-functional engineering, design, and customer success teams.
- Strong experience developing, enhancing, or managing payments or payroll software products.
- Ability to map complex technical requirements using data flow and sequence diagrams.
- Exemplary written and verbal communication skills with stakeholder persuasion ability.
- Data-led approach: use data, metrics, and user research to inform decisions.
- Comfortable working in high-velocity agile frameworks and iterative sprint delivery.
- Background or prior experience in Payments, Finance, or EdTech sectors.
- Experience in fast-paced, AI-native workflow environments.
What We Do
At Arbor, we’re on a mission to transform the way schools work for the better. You’ve probably seen the headlines. Heavy workloads, constant change, admin pressure on teachers and staff at every level… sometimes it feels like this is just part and parcel of school life today. But it doesn’t have to be this way. At Arbor, we passionately believe that there’s a better way to work. And it starts by giving everyone the right tools and technology for the job. Arbor is the fastest-growing MIS today. Over 3,800 schools and MATs use our tools to work more collaboratively, free staff from busywork and drive their schools forward. We know any technology is an investment, in both time and cost, so everything we do is designed with schools to make a real difference. Each year, we measure our impact on the metrics that matter most - like saving staff time and getting greater insight into your data - to hold ourselves accountable. We’re building a platform and products we believe in - as well as strong, diverse team of experienced specialists, ex-teachers and Edtech engineers passionate about making a difference to the sector. Ultimately, we’re here to help make our schools and trusts stress a little less, and focus on what matters most - improving the lives of teachers and outcomes of students everywhere.
