Engineering Team Lead (Remote, ANZ)

Optimal Workshop; Wellington; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

ESOP

Wellbeing allowance

Home office setup

4 weeks annual leave

Birthday day off

Remote-first with NZ/AU options

Job summary

Optimal Workshop is seeking an Engineering Team Lead to steer a small engineering team while staying hands‑on and shaping product delivery. You’ll influence architecture, collaborate with our CTPO, and mentor engineers to build scalable, reliable systems.

You’ll drive the engineering strategy, partner with Product and Design, and champion the use of AI to accelerate delivery. A remote‑first role with hybrid flexibility from Wellington, NZ, or anywhere in NZ/Australia is offered.

Qualifications

• Entrepreneurial mindset with impact‑driven approach.
• Proven people management experience mentoring engineers.
• Product mindset focused on outcomes and collaboration with design.
• Bias for action, pragmatic decisions, and delivery focus.
• Excitement for applying AI to improve developer productivity.
• Ability to navigate ambiguity and shape direction.
• Experience with React, Ruby on Rails, AWS, IaC, and CI/CD.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship features while staying hands‑on with code.
• Shape engineering strategy, architecture, and platform foundations.
• Manage a small team, support their growth and foster ownership.
• Explore AI tools to accelerate delivery and quality.
• Own delivery by partnering with Product and Design.
• Unblock the team, maintain momentum and clear goals.
• Lead reliability practices across the team for observability and resilience.

Skills

Leadership

People management

Product mindset

Decision making

Ambiguity tolerance

Delivery excellence

AI literacy

Tools

React

Ruby on Rails

AWS

Infrastructure as Code

CI/CD

Job description

Jora New Zealand will close on 9th September 2026. Thank you for being with us, we are cheering you on as you continue your career journey.

Optimal Workshop – Wellington Central, North Island

ANZ | Remote (or Hybrid from our Wellington office)

About Optimal

At Optimal, we build powerful research tools that help teams make data-driven decisions. Trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands, we’re passionate about user experience and the transformative power of human insight.

About the role

We’re looking for an Engineering Team Lead to join our team - someone who loves building great products and helping other engineers do their best work.

At Optimal, we build tools that help teams make better decisions through user research. We’re a small, ambitious team, which means you’ll have a real impact on how we build, ship, and scale our product. You’ll play a key role in shaping the strategy and roadmap - partnering closely with other technical leaders and our CTPO.

This role is a mix of hands‑on engineering, technical leadership, and people management. You’ll be close to the code, shaping architecture and delivery, while leading a small team of Engineers.

What you’ll do:

You’ll sit at the intersection of product, engineering, and delivery - helping the team move quickly and build the right things.

• Build and ship: Stay hands‑on with the codebase, contributing to the design and development of scalable, reliable systems
• Shape how we build: Partner with other technical leaders and the CTPO to define and evolve our engineering strategy, architecture, and platform foundations
• People management: Manage a small team of engineers, support their development, and create a high performing culture of learning, ownership, and feedback
• Use AI to move faster: Explore and implement ways to leverage AI tools to improve developer productivity and accelerate delivery
• Own delivery: Partner closely with Product and Design to break down problems, plan effectively, and ship with confidence
• Unblock and support the team: Keep things moving, remove friction, and help the team hit their goals
• Own reliability and operability: Lead site reliability practices across the team - including observability, incident response, on-call, and building systems that are scalable, secure, and resilient

What we’re looking for:

• Entrepreneurial mindset: You think beyond your team - you care about the product, the customer, and the business, and you’re motivated to make an impact
• People management experience: Proven ability to mentor or manage engineers while maintaining individual technical contributions
• Product mindset: You care about outcomes, not just output - and enjoy working closely with product and design
• Get things done: You bring energy, momentum, and a bias for action. You’re pragmatic and not afraid to make decisions and move forward
• Excited about AI: You’re excited about how AI can improve the way we build software and are keen to experiment and apply it in practice
• Comfortable with ambiguity: You can work with high-level goals and help shape the path forward
• Experience with our stack (or similar): React, Ruby on Rails, AWS, infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD technologies

What’s in it for you:

• Competitive salary (we offer a salary that reflects your experience and the value you’ll bring to our team)
• An opportunity to join our Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP) to help you benefit from the long-term success of the company
• Annual wellbeing allowance and support
• Home office set‑up support
• 4 weeks annual leave plus an additional day off on your birthday
• Flexible and remote first working (our HQ is based in Wellington, NZ, but this role can be based anywhere in New Zealand or Australia)

If you’re someone who enjoys building, leading, and improving how things get done - and you like the idea of bringing pace and experimentation into the team - we’d love to hear from you.