Principal Engineer, Cloud and Infrastructure

University of Canterbury; Christchurch; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Generous employer contribution tosuper

Job summary

The University of Canterbury is seeking a Principal Engineer, Cloud and Infrastructure to provide technical leadership across a hybrid environment spanning public cloud, datacentre infrastructure, and enterprise platforms. You will shape direction, mentor teams, and ensure resilience of critical services across Azure, AWS, storage, backup and monitoring.

This senior role requires 5–8 years of hands-on experience in cloud and infrastructure, strong architecture skills, and the ability to

Qualifications

• 5–8 years of hands-on experience at principal engineer level in cloud/infrastructure domains.
• Experience in large tertiary institutions or similarly complex environments.
• Strong architectural and engineering leadership capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Act as a recognised technical authority and guide architecture of operational technologies.
• Provide advice on service resilience, risk, security, and long-term sustainability.
• Work across Azure, AWS, physical and virtual servers, storage, backup and monitoring.
• Shape engineering standards, platform direction and governance across a hybrid environment.
• Provide leadership during significant incidents, high-risk changes, and platform modernization.
• Develop engineering capability through mentoring and peer leadership.

Skills

Cloud infrastructure

Platform engineering

Technical leadership

Architectural direction

Incident management

Tools

Microsoft Azure

Amazon Web Services

Windows Server

Linux

Networking

Storage

Monitoring

Virtualization

Scripting

Job description

Principal Engineer, Cloud and Infrastructure

• Generous employer contribution to superannuation (up to 6.75%)

At the University of Canterbury, our digital services underpin teaching, research and business operations. We are seeking an exceptional technical leader to join our Cloud and Infrastructure team as Principal Engineer, the highest individual contributor engineering role within the operational infrastructure function.

Āu Mahi | What You Will Do

This role provides technical leadership across a diverse hybrid environment spanning public cloud, datacentre infrastructure, virtualisation, storage, backup, monitoring and associated operational platforms. The successful candidate will shape engineering direction, influence platform strategy, provide operational architectural leadership, and contribute to the ongoing resilience and evolution of critical University services. In this role you will:

• Act as a recognised technical authority within the Cloud and Infrastructure domain, leading the architecture and direction of operational technologies and guiding complex technical decision‑making.
• Provide authoritative advice on service resilience, risk, security, supportability and long‑term sustainability.
• Work across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, physical and virtual server platforms, enterprise storage, backup and recovery, monitoring, automation and related infrastructure technologies.
• Shape engineering standards, platform direction, governance practices and technical investment decisions across an established enterprise hybrid environment.
• Provide technical leadership during significant incidents, high‑risk changes, platform modernisation and complex service improvement initiatives.
• Develop engineering capability through mentoring, peer leadership and the promotion of consistent engineering practices across Digital Services.

You will have deep technical experience in cloud, infrastructure, systems administration, platform engineering, or related operational technology domains, with 5–8 years of relevant experience appropriate to a Principal Engineer level. A deep understanding of a complex and varied tertiary environment is essential for success in this role.

You will also be able to demonstrate:

• Strong expertise across infrastructure technologies such as Windows and Linux server administration, networking, storage, backup, monitoring, virtualisation, scripting, or public cloud services including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, together with a strong understanding of the operational practices and architectural considerations required across both cloud and datacentre environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical design direction, architecture of operational technologies and associated deliverables, technical assurance, and high‑impact change activity.
• Substantial experience working within a large tertiary institution, research‑intensive organisation or similarly diverse knowledge‑based environment, understanding competing and interdependent needs of teaching and learning, research, specialised infrastructure, student‑facing services, enterprise operations, security, compliance and a broad stakeholder community.
• Demonstrate an understanding not only the technology, but also the context in which technology operates within a modern university, and applied senior technical leadership within that environment.

Mahi Ngātahi | Who You Will Work With

You will be part of Digital Services, working alongside platform, infrastructure and faculty enablement teams while partnering with academic and professional staff across the University. You will also engage with senior stakeholders, project teams and external technology partners to shape UC’s computing environment and support services that enable teaching, learning and research.

Ngā Painga o UC | Why UC

At UC, being part of our team means more than just a job. We are committed to supporting our kaimahi | staff’s career and wellbeing with benefits designed to help our kaimahi grow and feel connected, supported and valued.

The closing date for this position is: 9 October 2026 (midnight, NZ time) FIVE WORKING DAYS

You must have Aotearoa New Zealand or Australian citizenship/permanent residency to be considered for this role.

Please note, this is an onsite position.