Senior Technical Project Manager

First Focus; Auckland; On-site; NZD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

First Focus is seeking an experienced Senior Technical Project Manager in Auckland, NZ, to lead a 12-month independent contractor engagement focused on modern software delivery. The role emphasizes scope control, alignment among software engineers, designers and business stakeholders, and handling complex requirements with thoughtful trade-offs.

You’ll drive realistic delivery plans, manage changes, and maintain clear priorities while guiding teams to timely decisions and measurable outcomes.

Qualifications

• Significant experience managing complex software or technology projects.
• Strong scope management skills, including change control and prioritisation.
• Excellent stakeholder communication with senior decision-makers.
• Proven ability to negotiate scope changes and delivery trade-offs.
• Ability to explain technical challenges in clear business language.
• Experience with iterative software delivery and delivery reporting.
• Independent, decisive with ability to impact delivery.

Responsibilities

• Define and manage project scope, deliverables, exclusions, dependencies and acceptance criteria.
• Build delivery plans with priorities, milestones and responsibilities.
• Manage scope changes, assess impact and secure approvals.
• Explain trade-offs involving timelines, costs, quality and resources.
• Keep stakeholders and delivery teams informed and aligned.
• Lead workshops and resolve conflicting requirements.
• Track progress, risks, and forecast delivery.
• Protect engineering focus with clear requirements and stable priorities.
• Coordinate testing, stakeholder acceptance, release readiness and handover.
• Keep governance practical, lightweight and useful.

Skills

Senior project management

Scope management

Stakeholder communication

Negotiation & trade-offs

Planning & risk management

Clear requirement definition

Delivery reporting

Job description

Everyone wants more features. Someone needs to make sure we actually deliver them.

You know how it goes. A project starts with a clear scope, an agreed deadline and a plan everyone is happy with.

Then someone has a "quick little change". Someone else has a "small additional requirement". Suddenly, the scope has doubled, the deadline hasn't moved and the developers are wondering what happened to the original plan.

Sound familiar? We thought so.

At First Focus, we're looking for an experienced Senior Technical Project Manager who can keep a modern software delivery initiative on track, stakeholders aligned and scope creep firmly under control.

We need someone who can have difficult conversations without making them confrontational, challenge unrealistic expectations and recognise when a "nice-to-have" is trying very hard to disguise itself as a business-critical requirement.

And someone who understands that saying yes to everything is usually the fastest way to deliver nothing.

Who is First Focus?

We're one of Australia's leading managed service providers, helping more than 1,000 organisations get more from their technology.

Technology is what we do, but relationships are what we're known for.

Alongside managed IT services, our software engineering teams build business applications, customer portals, internal platforms and innovative solutions using modern technologies and AI.

We value curiosity, practical thinking and people who genuinely care about the quality of their work. We're not particularly interested in bureaucracy for its own sake, and we believe good ideas matter more than job titles.

Our values include Always Communicate, Be the Solution and Keep it Simple, all of which are particularly relevant to this role.

Learn more about First Focus and our values at https://www.firstfocus.com.au/about-us/.

About the contract

This is a 12-month independent contractor engagement, supporting a modern software delivery initiative involving UX/UI design, frontend engineering, reusable design systems and agentic AI development practices.

You'll work closely with software engineers, designers, technical leads and business stakeholders to keep project scope clear, manage changing requirements and ensure everyone stays aligned.

Your two biggest priorities will be scope management and stakeholder communication.

We're not looking for someone who simply updates project plans and sends weekly status reports. We need someone who can spot risks early, challenge unrealistic expectations and explain the trade-offs when priorities change.

You do not need to be a software engineer, but you do need enough technical understanding to ask the right questions, identify risks early and recognise when a seemingly small request is actually a significant change.

A few things worth knowing:

• 12-month independent contractor engagement with a defined delivery focus.
• Opportunity to work on modern software engineering and AI-related initiatives.
• Direct involvement with technical teams and business stakeholders.
• Autonomy to shape practical project delivery processes.
• A collaborative team that values clear communication and real results.

Important: This opportunity is offered on an independent contractor basis for 12 months. It is not a fixed-term employee role, and employee benefits and entitlements do not form part of the contractor engagement.

Requirements

What you'll be doing

• Define and manage project scope, deliverables, exclusions, dependencies and acceptance criteria.
• Build realistic delivery plans with clear priorities, milestones and responsibilities.
• Manage scope changes, assess their impact and secure the right approvals.
• Explain trade-offs involving timelines, costs, quality and resources.
• Keep stakeholders, technical leads and delivery teams informed and aligned.
• Lead workshops, resolve conflicting requirements and help teams make timely decisions.
• Track and report on progress, risks, dependencies and delivery forecasts.
• Protect engineering focus by maintaining clear requirements and stable priorities.
• Coordinate testing, stakeholder acceptance, release readiness and handover.
• Keep project governance practical, lightweight and useful.

What you'll bring

• Significant experience managing complex software or technology projects.
• Strong scope management skills, including change control, impact assessments and prioritisation.
• Excellent stakeholder communication, including confidence working with senior decision-makers.
• Proven ability to negotiate scope changes and delivery trade-offs while maintaining good relationships.
• Confidence to challenge unrealistic expectations and guide stakeholders towards practical decisions.
• Strong planning, facilitation, risk management and delivery reporting skills.
• Ability to explain technical challenges in clear business language.
• Good understanding of iterative software delivery, regardless of your preferred methodology.
• Independence, sound judgement and the ability to make an immediate impact.

We're far more interested in your ability to manage difficult conversations and keep projects under control than the number of project management certifications on your LinkedIn profile.

Bonus points if you've worked with

• Modern web applications, frontend engineering and UX/UI design systems.
• Agile, Scrum, Kanban or hybrid delivery approaches.
• Agentic AI or AI-assisted software development.
• Complex business applications, integrations and workflows.
• Fixed-duration projects involving multiple stakeholders and competing priorities.

These are nice to have, not a shopping list you need to tick off completely.

The kind of person who'll thrive here

You're someone who communicates clearly, makes sensible decisions and isn't afraid to have the occasional uncomfortable conversation.

You know that saying yes to everything isn't good project management. It's usually just a creative way to miss a deadline.

You can bring stakeholders with competing priorities together, explain the options and get decisions made.

You understand that a project isn't necessarily healthy just because every status indicator is green.

Most importantly, you know how to protect your delivery team's focus while maintaining trust and transparency with the business.

You believe good project management is about delivering outcomes, not generating paperwork to prove you've been busy.

Benefits

Why First Focus?

This is an opportunity to play a meaningful role in delivering a modern software initiative alongside talented engineers and designers exploring emerging technologies, including agentic AI.

You'll have the autonomy to establish practical delivery controls, influence important decisions and leave behind better ways of working.

We're looking for someone who can bring structure without unnecessary bureaucracy, communicate openly and keep the project moving.

You'll be working with people who value clear thinking, honest conversations and getting things done properly.

No endless meetings about meetings. No project plans that exist purely to make a dashboard look impressive. Just meaningful work, capable people and a shared focus on delivering the right outcomes.

Interested?

We'd love to hear about the projects that didn't go perfectly to plan.

The scope change you had to push back on. The stakeholder who wanted everything yesterday. The difficult conversation that ultimately saved the project.

Tell us how you managed the situation, explained the trade-offs and kept delivery moving.

We're not looking for someone who's never experienced scope creep. We're looking for someone who knows how to stop it taking over.

If you're an experienced technical project manager who brings clarity, confidence and a healthy respect for an agreed scope, we'd love to hear from you.

Neurodiversity: First Focus welcomes applications from Neurodiverse candidates. We recommend & appreciate disclosure along with the application so that a copy of our Neurodiversity Statement can be provided outlining the flexible options we can offer to best showcase your skills.

AI in Recruitment: We use AI-assisted recruitment tools to support our recruitment process. These tools do not make hiring decisions. Candidate information is handled in accordance with applicable New Zealand privacy legislation.