Quality Engineering Lead

Bank of New Zealand; Wellington; On-site; NZD 140,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Generous leave

Wellbeing programs

Job summary

Bank of New Zealand is seeking a Quality Engineering Lead to shape how quality engineering is delivered at scale. The role emphasizes standards, coaching, and pragmatic guidance to uplift quality across BNZ Technology.

You will influence teams, drive quality maturity, and responsibly adopt AI-enabled tools to improve test design, automation and delivery outcomes, while maintaining governance and risk controls.

Qualifications

• Experience leading quality engineering at scale in a complex or regulated environment.
• Strong understanding of SDLC, shift-left testing and automated quality controls.
• Ability to influence engineers and leaders without formal authority.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve BNZ's quality engineering strategy, standards and practices, including test automation, quality gates, test data, observability and CI/CD quality controls.
• Partner with delivery and platform teams to embed modern, shift-left quality practices into day-to-day ways of working, tooling and delivery governance.
• Coach engineers and quality practitioners, building strong communities of practice, practical learning pathways and consistent quality engineering behaviours.
• Use evidence, quality signals and delivery data to measure quality maturity, identify improvement opportunities, and connect engineering quality to delivery risk, assurance and release confidence.
• Guide the practical and responsible use of AI-enabled engineering tools to strengthen test design, automation, defect analysis, documentation, pattern identification and continuous improvement.
• Translate emerging quality engineering and AI-assisted practices into pragmatic guidance, standards and coaching that teams can adopt consistently.
• Work across Technology to ensure quality expectations are integrated into standards, tooling and engineering practices in a way that supports safe, reliable and efficient delivery.

Skills

Quality engineering

Leadership

Coaching

Education

Relevant engineering/quality discipline

Tools

AI‑enabled tooling

Job description

Here at BNZ, it's about more than just banking. We work together in an agile, energising environment to create innovative solutions through our promise "If you can imagine a better future, let's find a way." We support wellbeing, flexible working and have a generous leave offering.

Ko mātou tēnei | This is Us

This is the Engineering Excellence team - a newly forming team within BNZ Technology with a clear purpose: to lift the quality, consistency and confidence of engineering across BNZ Technology. We are building a team that brings together strong technical craft, pragmatic governance and a real focus on enabling others - and we have an exciting opportunity for a Quality Engineering Lead to help shape how quality engineering evolves at BNZ, including how we responsibly use emerging tools and practices such as AI-assisted engineering.

Mō te Tūranga | About the Role

This role can be located in ether Auckland or Wellington.

An enterprise‑wide engineering practice leadership role focused on setting direction for how quality is engineered into software delivery at BNZ. Rather than owning testing for individual teams, you will focus on standards, practices, capability uplift and coaching that improve outcomes at scale. A key part of this role will be helping BNZ make effective, responsible use of AI‑enabled engineering tools to improve quality outcomes, developer productivity, test coverage, insight generation and evidence‑based decision making. The role operates primarily through influence, enablement and evidence, rather than positional authority.

What are some of the responsibilities in this role?

• Define and evolve BNZ's quality engineering strategy, standards and practices, including test automation, quality gates, test data, observability and CI/CD quality controls.
• Partner with delivery and platform teams to embed modern, shift‑left quality practices into day‑to‑day ways of working, tooling and delivery governance.
• Coach engineers and quality practitioners, building strong communities of practice, practical learning pathways and consistent quality engineering behaviours.
• Use evidence, quality signals and delivery data to measure quality maturity, identify improvement opportunities, and connect engineering quality to delivery risk, assurance and release confidence.
• Guide the practical and responsible use of AI‑enabled engineering tools to strengthen test design, automation, defect analysis, documentation, pattern identification and continuous improvement.
• Translate emerging quality engineering and AI‑assisted practices into pragmatic guidance, standards and coaching that teams can adopt consistently.
• Work across Technology to ensure quality expectations are integrated into standards, tooling and engineering practices in a way that supports safe, reliable and efficient delivery.

Quality engineering capability and career progression

This role will help shape what great quality engineering looks like at BNZ, and how engineers build the skills, confidence and career pathways to deliver it consistently. You will play an important part in making quality capability visible, practical and repeatable across teams by contributing to:

• Clear expectations for quality engineering capability across roles and levels, aligned to BNZ's engineering standards and modern delivery practices.
• Career pathways that show how engineers can grow quality skills as part of their broader engineering craft, rather than treating quality as a separate specialist silo.
• Practical coaching, learning pathways and communities of practice that help teams build quality in as they work, rather than relying on downstream testing.
• Guidance on how AI‑assisted tools can be used responsibly to support test design, automation, analysis and learning as part of ongoing capability growth.
• Alignment between quality standards, training investment and progression expectations, so capability uplift translates into stronger engineering outcomes.

What will success look like for the candidate in this role?

Success in this role looks like consistent, repeatable quality engineering practices across Technology. Teams have clear test strategies, automation is effective and trusted, and quality gates are embedded into CI/CD in a way that supports delivery rather than slows it down. AI‑enabled engineering tools are being used responsibly and effectively to strengthen quality practices, improve insight, and support better delivery decisions. There is measurable uplift in quality maturity, stronger assurance signals, and increased confidence in releases, reflected in reduced incidents and rework.

What skills & experience would be beneficial?

• Strong technical credibility across modern quality engineering and test practices.
• Experience defining or evolving quality standards in a complex or regulated environment.
• Deep understanding of SDLC, shift‑left testing and automated quality controls.
• Ability to influence and coach engineers and leaders without relying on formal authority.
• Comfort using data and evidence to drive change and prioritisation.
• A pragmatic mindset that balances speed, quality, risk and assurance.
• Practical experience using AI‑assisted engineering or quality tools to improve software delivery outcomes, with sound judgement around responsible use, risk management, data protection and governance.

Nau Mai ki te Pēke o Aotearoa / Come to the Bank of New Zealand

This is an exciting opportunity to join us! We're bold thinkers who are taking brave steps to create a company that people want to work for, and customers want to bank with. If you're ready to join a fun organisation where we are proud of our culture and how we are helping New Zealander's to 'Find their way', we hope you will consider us.

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini - Success is not the work of an individual, but the work of many.

Applications will be reviewed regularly across the advertising period, but we do reserve the right to close applications early.