Delivery & Performance Specialist – Performance Optimisation (Fixed-term)

Air New Zealand; Auckland; On-site; NZD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Air New Zealand is seeking an experienced Delivery & Performance Specialist to join our Performance Optimisation squad on a 12-month fixed term contract in Auckland. You will diagnose bottlenecks, design focused interventions and measure impact across Units and squads.

This role emphasizes coaching, data-informed decision making and scalable ways of working to lift delivery performance, with broad stakeholder engagement and change enablement supporting lasting improvements.

Qualifications

• Strong systems thinking to diagnose delivery and performance issues.
• Proven coaching and facilitation experience.
• Ability to use data and qualitative insights to form hypotheses.
• Experience in agile, lean, continuous improvement and change.
• Excellent written and verbal communication.

Responsibilities

• Identify opportunities for improvement by combining data with context.
• Diagnose causes of performance constraints affecting flow and speed.
• Design time-bound interventions with Units and squads.
• Collaborate with Product Owners and Tribe Leads to align support.
• Measure impact using delivery, flow, adoption and qualitative signals.
• Create reusable playbooks and scalable practices.

Skills

Systems thinking

Coaching & facilitation

Data-informed decisions

Agile / Lean / CI

Change enablement

Stakeholder engagement

Job description

To support this vision, we are seeking an experienced Delivery & Performance Specialist to join our Delivery & Performance team. This is a 12-month fixed term contract.

Help shape the future of how Air New Zealand delivers for our customers, our people and Aotearoa. This is your opportunity to turn strategy into meaningful outcomes, influence enterprise-wide transformation, and build the capability that keeps one of New Zealand's most iconic organisations moving forward. Whether your experience comes from digital, operations, or large-scale transformation, we value fresh perspectives and the ability to create lasting impact.

As a Delivery & Performance Specialist, you will:

• Use delivery and performance signals to identify opportunities for improvement, combining quantitative data with context from Units, squads, leaders and Delivery & Performance Specialists.
• Diagnose the underlying causes of performance constraints, looking beyond symptoms to understand issues affecting flow, predictability, dependencies, prioritisation, team effectiveness and speed to value.
• Design and deliver focused, time-bound interventions with Units and squads, using coaching, facilitation, structured problem solving and practical changes to ways of working.
• Partner with Product Owners, Delivery Owners, Tribe Digital Leads, Unit leaders and other Delivery & Performance Specialists to agree where support is required and ensure ownership remains with the teams accountable for outcomes.
• Measure the impact of interventions using delivery, flow, adoption and qualitative signals, distinguishing activity completed from performance improvement achieved.
• Turn successful interventions and recurring patterns into reusable playbooks, tools, guidance and scalable ways of working, helping improvements extend beyond the teams directly supported.
• Help develop and improve performance telemetry and insight, ensuring measures are trusted, interpreted in context and used to trigger meaningful conversations and action.
• Strengthen Air New Zealand's operating model by identifying systemic friction, testing improvements and feeding evidence and learning back into enterprise ways of working.
• Support the adoption and sustainability of improvements through appropriate stakeholder engagement, change enablement and capability building.

Success in this role will be measured by measurable improvement in delivery performance within the areas supported, stronger delivery predictability and flow, reduced delivery friction, and clear evidence about which interventions work. You’ll also help create reusable approaches that allow successful improvements to be applied more broadly without creating ongoing dependency on the Operating Model Performance Tribe.

What we're looking for

• Demonstrated systems thinking ability to diagnose delivery or organisational performance issues, separating symptoms from underlying constraints and identifying practical improvement opportunities.
• Strong coaching and facilitation capability, with experience helping teams and leaders improve flow, prioritisation, predictability, accountability and ways of working.
• Confidence working with delivery and performance data, using metrics and qualitative insights to form hypotheses, guide conversations and assess whether interventions have made a difference.
• Practical knowledge of agile, lean, delivery models, systems thinking, flow and continuous improvement, with the judgement to adapt approaches rather than apply frameworks mechanically.
• Experience designing and facilitating targeted interventions, experiments or improvement activity, including establishing baselines, intended outcomes and measures of success.
• Ability to work across organisational boundaries and influence Product Owners, Delivery Owners, leaders, specialists and multidisciplinary teams without relying on positional authority.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and change capability, able to co-create improvements with affected teams and support changes through to sustained adoption.
• Ability to turn recurring problems and successful interventions into simple, reusable practices, playbooks, tools or guidance. A high degree of competency in written communication is critical.
• Experience in complex operational environments is advantageous, with relevant agile, coaching, delivery, change or continuous-improvement certifications also considered an advantage.

If you meet the majority of the criteria and are excited by the opportunity, we’d love to hear from you.

Ready for take-off?

If you’re passionate about enterprise transformation and enjoy turning complexity into practical outcomes, we’d love to hear from you. Join Air New Zealand and help shape the future of how we deliver for our customers, our people and New Zealand.

Job Description

Kia ora!

Help shape the future of how Air New Zealand delivers for our customers, our people and Aotearoa. This is your opportunity to turn strategy into meaningful outcomes, influence enterprise-wide transformation, and build the capability that keeps one of New Zealand's most iconic organisations moving forward. Whether your experience comes from digital, operations, or large-scale transformation, we value fresh perspectives and the ability to create lasting impact.

To support this vision, we are seeking an experienced Delivery & Performance Specialist to join our Delivery & Performance team. This is a 12-month fixed term contract.

You’ll join our Performance Optimisation squad, helping Air New Zealand identify and address the delivery constraints that have the greatest impact on performance. Working across Units and squads, you’ll combine performance data, practical delivery expertise and coaching to diagnose opportunities, design focused interventions and measure whether they make a difference.

Rather than providing permanent embedded support in Units, you’ll work where evidence and business context indicate that targeted intervention can unlock the most value. You’ll help turn what we learn into reusable practices, tools and insights that strengthen delivery performance across Air New Zealand.

As a Delivery & Performance Specialist, you will:

• Use delivery and performance signals to identify opportunities for improvement, combining quantitative data with context from Units, squads, leaders and Delivery & Performance Specialists.
• Diagnose the underlying causes of performance constraints, looking beyond symptoms to understand issues affecting flow, predictability, dependencies, prioritisation, team effectiveness and speed to value.
• Design and deliver focused, time-bound interventions with Units and squads, using coaching, facilitation, structured problem solving and practical changes to ways of working.
• Partner with Product Owners, Delivery Owners, Tribe Digital Leads, Unit leaders and other Delivery & Performance Specialists to agree where support is required and ensure ownership remains with the teams accountable for outcomes.
• Measure the impact of interventions using delivery, flow, adoption and qualitative signals, distinguishing activity completed from performance improvement achieved.
• Turn successful interventions and recurring patterns into reusable playbooks, tools, guidance and scalable ways of working, helping improvements extend beyond the teams directly supported.
• Help develop and improve performance telemetry and insight, ensuring measures are trusted, interpreted in context and used to trigger meaningful conversations and action.
• Strengthen Air New Zealand's operating model by identifying systemic friction, testing improvements and feeding evidence and learning back into enterprise ways of working.
• Support the adoption and sustainability of improvements through appropriate stakeholder engagement, change enablement and capability building.

Success in this role will be measured by measurable improvement in delivery performance within the areas supported, stronger delivery predictability and flow, reduced delivery friction, and clear evidence about which interventions work. You’ll also help create reusable approaches that allow successful improvements to be applied more broadly without creating ongoing dependency on the Operating Model Performance Tribe.

What we're looking for

• Demonstrated systems thinking ability to diagnose delivery or organisational performance issues, separating symptoms from underlying constraints and identifying practical improvement opportunities.
• Strong coaching and facilitation capability, with experience helping teams and leaders improve flow, prioritisation, predictability, accountability and ways of working.
• Confidence working with delivery and performance data, using metrics and qualitative insights to form hypotheses, guide conversations and assess whether interventions have made a difference.
• Practical knowledge of agile, lean, delivery models, systems thinking, flow and continuous improvement, with the judgement to adapt approaches rather than apply frameworks mechanically.
• Experience designing and facilitating targeted interventions, experiments or improvement activity, including establishing baselines, intended outcomes and measures of success.
• Ability to work across organisational boundaries and influence Product Owners, Delivery Owners, leaders, specialists and multidisciplinary teams without relying on positional authority.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and change capability, able to co-create improvements with affected teams and support changes through to sustained adoption.
• Ability to turn recurring problems and successful interventions into simple, reusable practices, playbooks, tools or guidance. A high degree of competency in written communication is critical.
• Experience in complex operational environments is advantageous, with relevant agile, coaching, delivery, change or continuous-improvement certifications also considered an advantage.

If you meet the majority of the criteria and are excited by the opportunity, we’d love to hear from you.

Ready for take-off?

If you’re passionate about enterprise transformation and enjoy turning complexity into practical outcomes, we’d love to hear from you. Join Air New Zealand and help shape the future of how we deliver for our customers, our people and New Zealand.

Applications close Tuesday 20th October 2026.

Additional Information

At Air New Zealand, we are proudly committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and believe in creating a truly inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves and thrive. Our people are our greatest asset – because while everything else we do in our operation can be replicated by our competitors, it is our people that truly set us apart. We are firm believers in celebrating the differences and diversity of thought our people bring to their roles. We encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds, including those with a disability, additional health and mental health needs, and/or are neurodiverse to apply for our roles.

If you have encountered any accessibility barriers and require further information or reasonable accommodations to our recruitment process, please reach out to the recruiter listed on this job advert so they are able to support you to freely participate equitably in our recruitment and selection process.

Whāia te pae tawhiti kia tata. Ko te pae tata whakamaua, kia tina.

"Seek to bring distant horizons closer. Once near, seize them and make them your reality."