Principal Cloud Data Engineer - IDI Modernisation

Statistics New Zealand; Wellington; On-site; NZD 135,000 - 182,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

37.5 hours work week

Sick leave 15 days

Annual flu vaccines

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

Wellbeing benefits

Study assistance programmes

Corporate rates

Social club

Job summary

Statistics New Zealand is seeking a Principal Cloud Data Engineer in Wellington to lead the design, build and evolution of modern cloud-native data platforms. You will drive platform modernisation, large-scale data migrations, automation, and engineering excellence within a multidisciplinary team.

The role focuses on secure, reliable data platforms, supporting evidence-based decisions for New Zealand while working with cutting-edge Azure Databricks, Delta Lake, Apache Spark and Azure services.

Qualifications

• Proven experience at Principal Engineer level (7+ years) or an equivalent senior leadership role.
• Deep expertise in Azure Databricks, Python, Delta Lake, Apache Spark, and Azure data services.
• Experience designing, building, migrating and optimising enterprise-scale cloud data platforms.
• Strong knowledge of data governance, data modelling, data quality, metadata management, and data lineage.
• Expertise in modern DevOps/CI/CD including Azure DevOps, Terraform, Git and ARM/Bicep.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across platform architecture, cloud engineering, governance and delivery.
• Lead complex initiatives including platform modernisation and large-scale data migration.
• Drive automation, engineering excellence and operational improvement across the team.
• Partner with stakeholders to deliver scalable, secure data capabilities that support decision-making.

Skills

Azure Databricks

Python

Delta Lake

Apache Spark

Azure data services

Data governance & modelling

DevOps & CI/CD

Terraform

Security & resilience

Stakeholder leadership

Tools

Azure DevOps

Git

ARM/Bicep

Terraform

Job description

Statistics New Zealand is seeking a Principal Cloud Data Engineer in Wellington to lead the design, build and evolution of modern cloud-native data platforms. You will drive platform modernisation, large-scale data migrations, automation, and engineering excellence within a multidisciplinary team.

The role focuses on secure, reliable data platforms, supporting evidence-based decisions for New Zealand while working with cutting-edge Azure Databricks, Delta Lake, Apache Spark and Azure services.