Principal Systems Engineer — Platform & Cloud Leadership

New Zealand Government; Palmerston North; On-site; NZD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Five weeks leave

Professional development

Inclusive culture

Job summary

NZTA | Waka Kotahi is seeking a Principal Systems Engineer to lead the design and delivery of enterprise technology platforms across cloud and on‑prem environments. You will drive reliability, mentor engineers and influence engineering direction in collaboration with Platform Leads and delivery teams.

You will champion Agile, DevOps, and continuous improvement while growing engineering capability and supporting Te Ao Māori principles in a modern public service context.

Qualifications

• Senior technical leadership in complex enterprise environments.
• Strong infrastructure, systems engineering and cloud expertise.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement and collaboration skills.
• Experience with Agile, DevOps and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and delivery of enterprise technology solutions.
• Drive platform reliability across cloud and on-prem environments.
• Provide leadership during incidents and critical outages.
• Mentor engineers and strengthen technical capability.
• Influence technology roadmaps and engineering direction.

Skills

Technical leadership

Cloud expertise

DevOps practices

Agile practices

Stakeholder engagement

Mentoring engineers

Job description

NZTA | Waka Kotahi is seeking a Principal Systems Engineer to lead the design and delivery of enterprise technology platforms across cloud and on‑prem environments. You will drive reliability, mentor engineers and influence engineering direction in collaboration with Platform Leads and delivery teams.

You will champion Agile, DevOps, and continuous improvement while growing engineering capability and supporting Te Ao Māori principles in a modern public service context.