Technical Lead

Nine; North Sydney Council; Hybrid; AUD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

18 weeks parental leave

Employee Exclusive program

Digital newspaper subscription

Stan subscription

Job summary

Nine is Australia's largest locally owned media company, with a Data Science & AI team delivering AI-powered products for Nine's brands. You will lead and mentor an engineering team, set software quality standards, and own AI system architecture on GCP/AWS while ensuring production reliability and fast delivery.

The role emphasizes leadership, cloud-driven backend services, and an agile delivery approach within a flexible work arrangement.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of commercial software engineering experience.
• 2+ years in technical leadership or engineering management.

Responsibilities

• Mentor and grow a small high-performing engineering team.
• Set the benchmark for software quality via clean architecture, CI/CD, testing and design sessions.
• Own the technical architecture for AI-powered systems across GCP and AWS (EKS).
• Maintain operational stability, monitoring and incident management for production AI applications.
• Improve Agile/Scrum workflows and remove blockers to keep shipping high-quality software.

Skills

Technical leadership

Python

Go (plus)

Backend systems

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS)

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code (Terraform/Open

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Software Engineering

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Nine is Australia's largest locally owned media company. Working at Nine, you'll have access to a unique range of experiences and opportunities, helping drive the success of the country's most trusted television, radio, digital and publishing brands.

The Data Science & AI team sits within Nine's Digital group, building AI-powered products that create genuine value for Nine's business and its audiences. The team operates across two complementary tracks: a Data Science function focused on modelling and business optimisation; and an AI Engineering function that designs and ships production AI software.

What you'll do:

• People Operations & Team Leadership: Mentor and grow a small high-performing engineering team. Build a culture centered on technical craft, cross-skilling, and continuous learning.
• Engineering Standards & Governance: Set the benchmark for software quality by driving best practices in clean architecture, CI/CD, testing, and system design through hands-on code reviews and design sessions.
• Architecture & System Design: Own the technical architecture for AI-powered systems across GCP and AWS (EKS), balancing pragmatic, fast delivery with long-term scalability and maintainability.
• Production & Operations Integrity: Maintain operational stability, monitoring, and incident management for high-availability, customer-facing AI applications running in production.
• Delivery & Execution: Improve Agile/Scrum workflows, remove technical and organisational blockers, and keep the team shipping high-quality software consistently.

What you'll bring:

• 7+ years of commercial software engineering experience, with a record of shipping and operating production systems.
• 2+ years in a technical leadership or engineering management role, with demonstrated experience mentoring and growing engineers.
• Strong programming skills in Python, with familiarity with Go considered a plus, or a similar programming language.
• Experience designing and building backend systems and APIs, with a solid grounding in software architecture principles.
• Hands-on experience with GCP and/or AWS cloud platforms.
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code (such as Terraform or OpenTofu or similar).
• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Desirable but not essential:

• Experience building applications with LLMs, agentic AI frameworks, RAG, vector databases, or embedding models.
• Exposure to Google Cloud AI services (Vertex AI, Agent Runtime), MLOps practices, or multi-modal AI systems.
• Containerisation and orchestration experience using Docker and Kubernetes (EKS or GKE).
• Prior experience in a media, publishing, or digital content organisation.

Additional Information

How we work: At Nine, our flexible work options vary by role and team. Depending on the position, this may include flexible hours, hybrid work, or part-time arrangements. We welcome discussing your flexibility needs during the hiring process – just ask the Talent Acquisition team.

Our employee benefits include:

• 18 weeks paid parental leave with no distinction between primary and secondary carers
• Access to 'Employee Exclusives' program – a way of getting closer to our incredible brands, offering unique experiences, behind-the-scenes access, and awesome perks.
• Digital newspaper subscription to our mastheads
• Annual gift voucher for Stan subscription

More info at Nine Careers

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

We're committed to a safe, respectful and inclusive Nine. From day one, you'll be encouraged to bring your whole self to work and will be supported to perform at your best.

We encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disabilities, and of all ages, genders, nationalities, backgrounds and cultures as we recognise the importance and value of diverse perspectives. Should you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please advise us when you apply.

Work rights: Please note to apply for this role you must already have unrestricted rights to lawfully work and live in Australia.