Enterprise Data Engineer & AI Platform Leader

New Zealand Government; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 148,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary and benefits

5 weeks annual leave

Flexible working arrangements

Life, Income Protection and CriticalIl

Job summary

NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) invites a Principal Data Engineer to shape how data is engineered, governed, and leveraged across the organisation. You will provide enterprise technical leadership, set strategic direction, and assure delivery across large, high-impact programmes.

You will mentor the next generation of data engineers, foster a culture of engineering excellence, and lead the Data Community of Practice to drive knowledge sharing and continuous improvement across squads and partners.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience leading large-scale enterprise data initiatives.
• Proven mentoring of technical specialists to build capability.
• Ability to influence senior leaders and guide complex decisions.
• Deep expertise in Databricks and cloud-based data platforms.
• Experience delivering analytics, AI/ML, and BI solutions.
• Strong understanding of data governance, security and privacy.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Data Community of Practice and promote knowledge sharing.
• Coach and mentor data engineers to grow organisational capability.
• Provide strategic direction and technical assurance across programmes.
• Influence enterprise decisions and shape data engineering practices.

Skills

Data leadership

Mentoring data engineers

Influence senior leaders

Databricks & Lakehouse

Analytics/AI/ML/BI

Data governance & security

SQL & Python/Scala/R

Tech debt management

Stakeholder engagement

Tools

Databricks

Cloud data platforms

Lakehouse architecture

Job description

NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) invites a Principal Data Engineer to shape how data is engineered, governed, and leveraged across the organisation. You will provide enterprise technical leadership, set strategic direction, and assure delivery across large, high-impact programmes.

You will mentor the next generation of data engineers, foster a culture of engineering excellence, and lead the Data Community of Practice to drive knowledge sharing and continuous improvement across squads and partners.