Principal Platform Engineer

Air New Zealand; Auckland; On-site; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Staff Travel

FlexiLeave

Learning culture

Employee discounts

Wellbeing support

Job summary

Air New Zealand is seeking a Principal Platform Engineer to lead strategic platform engineering initiatives. You will architect platform-wide services, shape standards, and guide engineers across multi-cloud environments (AWS/Azure) to deliver scalable, secure systems.

You’ll mentor teams, drive automation with IaC and CI/CD, collaborate with SRE, Security, and Product teams, and contribute to long-term platform vision in a fast-paced, agile environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in software, cloud, or platform engineering.
• Strong background in cloud infrastructure and architecture.
• Hands-on with modern languages (Python, Java, Go, Bash).

Responsibilities

• Architect and oversee design of platform-wide services and standards.
• Provide deep technical leadership and mentor engineers.
• Influence decisions across domains and lead reliability improvements.
• Champion automation and Infrastructure as Code.
• Collaborate with SREs, Security, and Product teams.
• Contribute to long-term platform vision.

Skills

Kubernetes

Terraform

CI/CD

Automation

Observability

Security

Python/Java/Go

Stakeholder mgmt

Tools

AWS

Azure

Job description

At Air New Zealand, we’re reimagining how technology powers our journey, building platforms that enable innovation, speed, and resilience at scale. Our multi-cloud strategy across AWS and Azure is the backbone of our digital transformation, helping us modernise systems, automate workflows, and deliver exceptional experiences for our customers and teams.

As we continue this evolution, we’re looking for a Principal Software Engineer to take a strategic, technical-lead role within our DevOps Chapter. This is an opportunity to influence architecture, define standards, and guide the next generation of platform engineers across Air New Zealand.

If you’re a seasoned engineer or technical lead, perhaps with a background in microservices or large-scale distributed systems, who thrives on solving complex technical challenges and shaping organisational direction, this is your next step.

The Role You’ll Play

As a Principal Platform Engineer, you will:

• Architect and oversee the design and implementation of platform-wide services, frameworks, and standards.
• Provide deep technical leadership, mentoring engineers and empowering teams to deliver secure, reliable, and high-performing systems.
• Influence architectural decisions and set the direction for platform engineering across multiple domains.
• Lead initiatives that improve platform reliability, security, scalability, and performance.
• Champion automation, Infrastructure as Code, observability, and continuous delivery at an organisational level.
• Collaborate with SREs, Platform Engineers, Security, and Product teams to align technical direction with strategic objectives.
• Contribute to strategic planning and long-term platform vision, ensuring our engineering ecosystem remains future-ready.

What You’ll Bring

• 8+ years of experience in software, cloud, or platform engineering with a proven ability to design and lead complex systems.
• Strong background in architecture and cloud infrastructure (AWS or Azure), and deep knowledge of Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD.
• Demonstrated ability to influence engineering standards and technical decisions across teams.
• Expertise in automation, observability, and security best practices.
• Hands‑on experience with modern programming or scripting languages (Python, Java, Go, Bash, etc.).
• A strategic mindset with a passion for enabling others; you’re a “force multiplier” who empowers development teams to move faster and smarter.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to bridge technical and business priorities.

If you meet the majority of the criteria and are excited by the opportunity, we'd love to hear from you.

What we can offer you

We want our people to live their best lives and access great benefits that support their lives outside work.

• Generous Staff Travel benefits for you, your friends and whānau.
• FlexiLeave, giving you the option to purchase up to four additional weeks of leave each year.
• A learning culture that supports your development through meaningful work, on the job learning and career growth opportunities.
• Access to a wide range of employee discounts across travel, retail, banking, insurance and more.
• Health and wellbeing support, including our Wellbeing Hub, Employee Assistance Programme and access to discounted healthcare options.

Ready for take‑off?

This is your opportunity to make a real impact on the technology at Air New Zealand. If you enjoy working in collaborative agile teams and want to help build the future of platform engineering, we'd love to hear from you.

Additional Information

At Air New Zealand, we are proudly committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and believe in creating a truly inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves and thrive. Our people are our greatest asset – because while everything else we do in our operation can be replicated by our competitors, it is our people that truly set us apart. We are firm believers in celebrating the differences and diversity of thought our people bring to their roles. We encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds, including those with a disability, additional health and mental health needs, and/or are neurodiverse to apply for our roles.

If you have encountered any accessibility barriers and require further information or reasonable accommodations to our recruitment process, please reach out to the recruiter listed on this job advert so they are able to support you to freely participate equitably in our recruitment and selection process.

"Seek to bring distant horizons closer. Once near, seize them and make them your reality."