Technical Team Lead - Remote (AU/NZ)

Workshop; Wellington; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Employee Share Option Plan

Annual wellbeing allowance

Home office set-up support

4 weeks annual leave

Flexible working

Job summary

Optimal, based in Wellington, NZ, is seeking a Technical Team Lead. The ideal candidate will build and ship scalable systems while mentoring engineers and aligning closely with product teams. Responsibilities include shaping engineering strategy, improving developer productivity through AI, and leading site reliability practices. The role offers competitive salary, employee share options, annual leave, and the flexibility to work remotely from New Zealand or Australia.

Qualifications

• Experience leading or mentoring engineers and guiding technical decisions.
• Strong understanding of product outcomes and collaboration with product/design.
• Ability to work with ambiguity and high-level goals.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship scalable, reliable systems by contributing to codebase.
• Partner with technical leaders to define engineering strategy and architecture.
• Mentor engineers and create a culture of learning and feedback.

Skills

Entrepreneurial mindset

Technical leadership experience

Product mindset

Experience with our stack (React, Ruby on Rails, AWS)

Excited about AI

Tools

React

Ruby on Rails

AWS

CI/CD technologies

Job description

ANZ | Remote (or Hybrid from our Wellington office)

About Optimal

At Optimal, we build powerful research tools that help teams make data‑driven decisions. Trusted by some of the world’s biggest brands, we’re passionate about user experience and the transformative power of human insight.

About the role

We’re looking for a Technical Team Lead to join our team – someone who loves building great products and helping other engineers do their best work. At Optimal, we build tools that help teams make better decisions through user research. We’re a small, ambitious team, which means you’ll have real impact on how we build, ship, and scale our product. You’ll play a key role in shaping the strategy and roadmap – partnering closely with other technical leaders and our CTPO. This role is a mix of hands‑on engineering, technical leadership, and team enablement. You’ll be close to the code, shaping architecture and delivery, while also supporting and growing the engineers around you.

What you’ll do:

• Build and ship: Stay hands‑on with the codebase, contributing to the design and development of scalable, reliable systems
• Shape how we build: Partner with other technical leaders and the CTPO to define and evolve our engineering strategy, architecture, and platform foundations
• Use AI to move faster: Explore and implement ways to leverage AI tools to improve developer productivity and accelerate delivery
• Own delivery: Partner closely with Product and Design to break down problems, plan effectively, and ship with confidence
• Unblock and support the team: Keep things moving, remove friction, and help the team hit their goals
• Grow people: Mentor engineers, support their development, and create a high performing culture of learning, ownership, and feedback
• Own reliability and operability: Lead site reliability practices across the team – including observability, incident response, on‑call, and building systems that are scalable, secure, and resilient

What we’re looking for:

• Entrepreneurial mindset: You think beyond your team – you care about the product, the customer, and the business, and you’re motivated to make an impact
• Technical leadership experience: You’ve led or mentored engineers and can guide technical decisions without needing to own everything
• Product mindset: You care about outcomes, not just output – and enjoy working closely with product and design
• Gets things done: You bring energy, momentum, and a bias for action. You’re pragmatic and not afraid to make decisions and move forward
• Excited about AI: You’re excited about how AI can improve the way we build software and are keen to experiment and apply it in practice
• Comfortable with ambiguity: You can work with high‑level goals and help shape the path forward
• Experience with our stack (or similar): React, Ruby on Rails, AWS, infrastructure‑as‑code and CI/CD technologies

What’s in it for you:

• Competitive salary (we offer a salary that reflects your experience and the value you’ll bring to our team)
• Employee Share Option Plan (ESOP) to help you benefit from the long‑term success of the company
• Annual wellbeing allowance and support
• Home office set‑up support
• 4 weeks annual leave plus an additional day off on your birthday
• Flexible and remote first working (our HQ is based in Wellington, NZ, but this role can be based anywhere in New Zealand or Australia)

If you’re someone who enjoys building, leading, and improving how things get done – and you like the idea of bringing a bit of pace and experimentation into the team – we’d love to hear from you.