Our client is after their next Engineering Manager. Someone who wants to genuinely own the full development lifecycle, enable their team to move faster, and still get their hands dirty with code.
This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll shape how the team works, remove friction, and help good developers do their best work.
The organisation itself is one of those quiet NZ success stories. They don’t chase headlines or hype. Instead, they focus on building a solid product that customers genuinely love.
With a tech stack spanning web, mobile, reporting, and backend data-heavy workloads, you’ll be the glue that keeps everything running smoothly.
About the role
This is a true team lead role with a high degree of autonomy. You’ll have the space and trust to do what you believe is right for the team.
Day to day, you’ll still be involved in technical decision making and some hands on development, but your primary focus will be ensuring the team stays aligned, productive, and unblocked.
That could mean:
Implementing a right-sized agile process
Identifying skills gaps and organising training
Spotting recurring blockers and actively removing them, both for right now and the future
This is not one of those “Manager” roles that sound perfect on paper, but comes with a bunch of caveats and handcuffs. Your experience and opinions will genuinely shape how the development team works and evolves.
What you will bring
Ideally you would have held a Team Lead / Tech Lead / Lead Developer / Development Manager role before. Concepts like one one ones, performance reviews, and development plans won’t be new to you.
You’ll also bring a strong technical background. You’re comfortable getting your hands dirty and making tough calls around technical direction and migrations when required.
And finally, have that organizational ability. Whether it’s scrum, agile, XP, Kanban, whatever it is, it just needs to keep the team humming.
You will need all/most/able-to-fake-it of :
Previous experience managing a software development team all the way from hiring, one on ones, performance reviews etc
An understanding that sometimes unlocking your team’s potential matters more than being deep in the weeds with headphones on
Good hands on experience in the world of PHP (Laravel for the new stuff, vanilla PHP for the legacy stuff you can’t wait to modernize). It’s “possible” that non-PHP backgrounds could be discussed, but you’ll have to learn the ways of <?php ?> at some point!
Good experience with AWS
And some/none-but-willing-to-learn of :
Experience with Node.js
Experience managing external vendors
Exposure to strategic roadmaps and forecasting
General IT knowledge (networking, governance, audits) to help plug gaps where needed
Additional information
This role is based in Auckland CBD. The first month is likely onsite just to get a feel for the team and the role, then 2 days a week from home. And don’t worry, a car park is all part of the package!
The role is only open to candidates with existing working rights within NZ.
For more information on the role or to apply direct. [email protected] / 09 888 4188
