Principal Software Engineer - AI-Driven Delivery Leader

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

Benefits offered by this job

Five weeks annual leave

Income Protection and Critical Illness

Professional development and career成长

Flexible working arrangements

Diverse engineering community

Job summary

NZTA | Waka Kotahi seeks a Principal Software Engineer to lead and shape engineering across frontend, backend, mobile and integration domains. You will drive technical direction, set standards, and mentor engineers while advancing AI-augmented engineering and secure, accelerated delivery.

You will influence across multiple teams, ensuring high-quality software delivery with a strong security posture and a focus on long-term sustainability. Join a community committed to engineering excellence.

Qualifications

• Extensive software engineering experience across frontend, backend and integration.
• Experience establishing and embedding engineering standards, patterns, guardrails and reusable approaches.
• A future-focused vision for AI augmented engineering with secure, automated delivery.
• Broad technical expertise across modern software engineering including Java, Spring Boot, React, REST APIs, PostgreSQL, Azure, Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub and GitHub Actions.
• Strong SDLC and DevSecOps practices with security embedded throughout the lifecycle.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands on technical leadership across complex, high impact engineering challenges.
• Lead the development and adoption of engineering standards, patterns, guardrails and reusable approaches.
• Lead evolution of AI augmented engineering and scale approaches for design, build, test and delivery of software.
• Influence software strategy, technical direction and significant engineering decisions across teams and platforms.
• Mentor engineers from graduate to senior level, growing capability across the chapter.
• Build alignment across Engineering, Architecture, Security, Platforms, Product and delivery teams.
• Champion DevSecOps, automation and shift left security across the SDLC.

Skills

Java

Spring Boot

React

REST APIs

PostgreSQL

Azure

Docker

Kubernetes

GitHub

GitHub Actions

DevSecOps

Automation

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

GitHub

GitHub Actions

Azure

Job description

NZTA | Waka Kotahi seeks a Principal Software Engineer to lead and shape engineering across frontend, backend, mobile and integration domains. You will drive technical direction, set standards, and mentor engineers while advancing AI-augmented engineering and secure, accelerated delivery.

You will influence across multiple teams, ensuring high-quality software delivery with a strong security posture and a focus on long-term sustainability. Join a community committed to engineering excellence.