Principal Generative AI Engineer

Tribe Group; Auckland; On-site; NZD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Tribe Group, in partnership with a leading New Zealand owned tech consultancy, seeks a Principal Generative AI Engineer to establish and lead a Generative AI Centre of Excellence. You will be hands-on and steer practical delivery of AI systems used by real users.

You’ll work across client delivery, internal enablement, and set guardrails on responsible AI, privacy and security while mentoring engineers and shaping standards across the practice.

Qualifications

• 8+ years building and shipping production software with technical leadership on complex delivery
• 12+ months of hands-on development using an agentic coding tool as a core part of building
• End-to-end experience applying AI agents across design, implementation, testing and deployment
• Hands-on experience building agentic systems as the deliverable
• Strong coding ability in Python, C#/.NET or TypeScript across the stack
• Confident consulting and teaching capability: discovery, stakeholder management, and coaching engineers to uplift skills

Responsibilities

• Lead the Generative AI Centre of Excellence and stay hands-on in code
• Deliver client projects from proofs of concept through early builds
• Enable the team via workshops, pairing and reference implementations
• Set standards and guardrails around responsible AI, privacy and security
• Coach and uplift engineers across the practice

Skills

Technical leadership

Python

C#/.NET

TypeScript

AI agents

Hands-on coding

End-to-end AI

Tools

GitHub Copilot

Claude Code

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Azure AI

Fabric / Synapse

Job description

Tribe is partnering with a highly regarded, New Zealand owned technology consultancy to appoint a Principal Generative AI Engineer to establish and lead a Generative AI Centre of Excellence.

This is a rare opportunity for someone who has already spent the last year genuinely building with AI agents as part of their daily workflow, not dabbling. The focus is practical delivery: designing and shipping AI systems that work with real users and real data, and closing the gap between an impressive demo and a reliable production outcome.

You will lead the practice while staying hands‑on in the code. The work spans client delivery (proofs of concept through to early‑stage builds), internal enablement (workshops, pairing, reference implementations), and setting standards and guardrails around responsible AI, privacy, and security.

What You’ll Bring

• 8+ years building and shipping production software, including technical leadership on complex delivery
• 12+ months of sustained hands‑on development using an agentic coding tool (e.g., Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or equivalent) as a core part of how you build
• End‑to‑end experience applying AI agents across the full lifecycle (design, implementation, testing, deployment), with evaluation throughout rather than only at test time
• Strong capability designing the 'system around the model', including:
• Harness design (tool definitions, context management, routing, permissions, approval gates, observability)
• Loop engineering (plan, act, verify, repair) with termination conditions that produce evidence, not an agent's assurance
• Evaluation you can trust (eval suites, defining 'done', diagnosing failure modes, improving reliability over time)
• Hands‑on experience building agentic systems as the deliverable (not only using agents to write code faster)
• Strong coding ability in Python, C#/.NET or TypeScript, with the range to work across the stack
• Confident consulting and teaching capability: discovery, senior stakeholder management, clear advice on feasibility/cost/risk, and uplift of other engineers via coaching and workshops

Nice to Have

• Experience with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry)
• Depth in Azure and its AI services (AWS also welcome), with sound judgement around privacy, security, and responsible AI
• Exposure across the Microsoft data platform (Fabric, Synapse, Power BI, Power Platform, Dynamics 365)
• Familiarity with NZ context (Privacy Act 2020, NZISM, public sector assurance, Māori data sovereignty principles)
• Experience establishing a practice or Centre of Excellence from an early stage

What’s on Offer

• A hands‑on principal-level role where you will ship agentic AI systems, not just present strategy
• The opportunity to set the standards, patterns and guardrails a Centre of Excellence will build by
• Varied client work with high-profile organisations and complex, real‑world delivery challenges
• A creative, stimulating environment with a genuine commitment to inclusivity and diversity
• The chance to build internal accelerators and tooling that scale what works across the wider organisation

To apply for this vacancy, you MUST be a New Zealand citizen, resident, or have already secured the right to work in New Zealand and therefore hold a valid visa.

At the appropriate stage we will request your references, we ask that you do not include them on your CV when applying.

Tribe is a group of specialist teams, each of who truly understand their world, and together they partner to understand yours. Whether you're looking for your next opportunity or recruiting, we're all about bringing people together for a shared purpose. Find your people.