Lead our Engineering Chapter as a Principal Engineer
Drive engineering excellence through standards, patterns and guardrails
Location: Auckland, Palmerston North, Wellington or Christchurch
We are establishing Principal Engineering within Engineering at NZ Transport Agency | Waka Kotahi (NZTA), bringing together deep technical expertise, strategic influence and hands on leadership. You’ll work across teams and platforms, tackling complex challenges, shaping long term engineering direction and growing technical capability across NZTA.
Te Whiwhinga mahi | The opportunity
We are looking to appoint two Principal Engineers for our Engineering Chapter, working with the Reliability and Platforms crafts.
As Principal Engineer, you'll provide technical leadership across critical enterprise platforms, shaping the design and delivery of secure, scalable, and reliable solutions that support NZTA's digital services. Working across a primarily Azure public cloud environment, you'll influence technical direction, resolve complex issues, and help ensure platforms remain resilient, efficient, and fit for the future.
This role combines hands-on engineering expertise with strategic influence. You'll work closely with Platform Leads, Product Owners, and delivery teams to guide technical decision-making, contribute to technology roadmaps, support service integrity, and drive continuous improvement through modern engineering, Agile, and DevOps practices.
You'll also be a trusted technical advisor to the Chapter Lead, helping influence the future of Engineering at NZTA. You'll play a key role in growing engineering capability across NZTA. Through mentoring, coaching, and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation, you'll help build a high-performing team while championing best practice, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning.
You will:
Provide hands on technical leadership across complex, high impact engineering challenges
Drive platform reliability across cloud environments
Significantly influence internal developer platforms and developer experience
Lead the evolution of AI augmented engineering by identifying, proving and scaling approaches that improve how we design, build, test and deliver systems and platforms
Champion Agile, DevOps, and continuous improvement practices
Influence technology roadmaps and engineering direction
Mentor engineers and strengthen technical capability
Collaborate across teams to deliver secure, scalable services
You will find out more about the role here Position Description
Ko koe tēnei | About you
You're an experienced engineering leader with deep expertise across cloud technologies, platform operations, and DevOps practices within complex enterprise environments. Combining strategic thinking with a hands-on approach, you're passionate about solving complex technical challenges, mentoring engineers, and driving continuous improvement through modern engineering and Agile practices.
You will bring:
Proven experience in senior technical leadership roles
Strong Cloud, AI, and developer platforms expertise
A future focused vision for AI augmented engineering, with the curiousity and technical leadership to experiment, prove and scale new approaches
Broad technical expertise across Site Reliability Engineering practices and Platform Engineering practices
Strong knowledge of Agile, DevOps, and continuous improvement practices
Excellent stakeholder engagement, communication, and collaboration skills and the ability to build influence without relying on authority
A growth mindset and commitment to continuous learning, openly sharing knowledge, challenging thinking and always looking for better ways to operate.
You will demonstrate knowledge of, or a willingness to gain an understanding of Te Ao Māori and promote tikanga and Te Reo Māori. You will also have knowledge of, or a willingness to gain an appreciation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as it applies in the public service.
Mō mātou | About us
The Chief Technology…