Head of Engineering

NYLON; Christchurch; On-site; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Nylon is seeking a Head of Engineering in Christchurch, NZ to build and scale the engineering organisation. You will lead managers and senior engineers, define delivery playbooks, and partner with the CTO on architecture decisions to power the company's growth.

You'll shape engineering culture, implement an leveling framework, and champion operational excellence, AI tooling practices, and high-quality software delivery across a fast-growing SaaS platform.

Qualifications

• You've led an engineering organisation through fast growth in a high growth SaaS environment.
• You've built teams that outlast you and leaders elsewhere.
• You're technical enough to review designs with senior engineers and discuss architecture trade-offs.
• You treat operational excellence as a leadership discipline.
• You already use AI tooling and have strong views on how engineering teams are shaped.
• You want the leverage, agency and stakes that come with building a company's engineering function.

Responsibilities

• Building and leading the engineering team, from the managers to the senior engineers who set the standard.
• Owning delivery across the product: one plan agreed with product, and squads that ship it predictably.
• Setting the bar for how we build: code review, release quality, on-call and postmortems that make us better.
• Growing people through our engineering leveling framework and making Nylon a place engineers do the best work of their careers.
• Shaping how an AI-native engineering organisation works, from tooling to team shape, with the freedom to try things.
• Partnering with the CTO on architecture and platform decisions and turning them into what the squads build next.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Team building

Architecture decisions

Operational excellence

AI tooling

SaaS growth

Tools

Claude Code

Job description

Nylon builds AI research tools that are changing how lawyers and accountants work. 2,000+ firms across New Zealand, Australia and the UK trust our platform, from the biggest firms in the world to small specialist practices. Backed by Australasia's top VCs, we're expanding into new markets while deepening our position in the UK and Australia.

We're at the stage where the engineering organisation we build over the next two years will decide whether we win globally. We're looking for a Head of Engineering to build it.

The role

You'll lead product engineering at Nylon, reporting to the CTO. The product is trusted by thousands of professionals, the company is funded to grow engineering several times over, and the way software gets built is changing faster than at any point in our careers. Your job is to build the engineering organisation that makes the most of that: hire and lead the managers and senior engineers, set how we ship, and make Nylon the place the best engineers in the country want to work. You'll have real authority over the engineering playbook, with the CTO as your partner on technical direction.

What you'll be doing

• Building and leading the engineering team, from the managers to the senior engineers who set the standard

• Owning delivery across the product: one plan agreed with product, and squads that ship it predictably

• Setting the bar for how we build: code review, release quality, on-call and postmortems that make us better

• Growing people through our engineering leveling framework and making Nylon a place engineers do the best work of their careers

• Shaping how an AI-native engineering organisation works, from tooling to team shape, with the freedom to try things

• Partnering with the CTO on architecture and platform decisions and turning them into what the squads build next

About you

• You've led an engineering organisation through fast growth in a high growth SaaS environment, with managers reporting to you

• You've built teams that outlast you: the people you hired and grew are now leading elsewhere

• You're technical enough to hold a design review with senior engineers and to be trusted on architecture trade-offs

• You treat operational excellence as a leadership discipline

• You already use AI tooling (we're passionate Claude Code builders) and have strong views on what it means for how engineering teams are shaped

• You want the leverage, agency and stakes that come with building a company's engineering function