Technical Lead – Data Platform | Kaiārahi Hangarau – Raraunga Rāngai Rorohiko
Statistics NZ
Join a high-impact team delivering a critical piece of national data infrastructure. Here, you'll have the autonomy to lead, the support to grow, and the opportunity to influence how trusted data is managed, accessed, and protected for decades to come.
About Us | Ko mātou
Stats NZ | Tatauranga Aotearoa is a Central Government employer of 1200+ people across Aotearoa. We provide data and statistics to support the decisions of Government, Māori and Iwi organisations, businesses, NGOs, and New Zealanders. Our work is About Aotearoa, for Aotearoa - data that improves lives today and for generations to come. We welcome every gender, ethnicity, ability, religion, age, and background and encourage all our people to be their authentic selves.
What's in it for you? | Ngā hua ka riro ki a koe
We encourage you to go to our careers site to learn more about the Way We Work at Stats NZ and also check out our benefits. We want working for us… to work for you!
Starting salary: $118,052 - $158,264 + superannuation
Other benefits of joining our Stats whānau include:
- Flexible by default, balance life and work commitments
- An environment where we can all be leaders, where your ideas and input are encouraged
- 3 extra annual leave days (taken during Christmas office closure)
- City based offices that cater to a variety of working styles and needs
- State of the art, 6-star green building in Wellington
The role | Te tūnga
We're looking for a Technical Lead to shape the future of our next-generation Stats NZ Data Platform - a flagship service underpinning access to trusted data for generations to come. This is a 12-month fixed term opportunity.
This is a unique opportunity to bring together your leadership, cloud architecture, and data engineering expertise to guide the technical vision of one of Aotearoa's most strategic data assets. You'll support the evolution of our integrated data platform and lead the way in building scalable, secure, and cost-effective services that empower data-informed decisions across government, iwi, and the public.
In this pivotal role, you'll be responsible for:
- Leading the technical design and delivery of Azure-native data platform services, including Databricks, Delta Lake, and event-based streaming solutions.
- Providing technical mentorship and hands-on support to engineers, uplifting platform capability and fostering innovation.
- Partnering with data product teams, solution architects, and business stakeholders to ensure alignment of platform features with organisational goals.
- Championing best practices in DevOps, IaC (Terraform, Azure DevOps), CI/CD pipelines, and cloud monitoring (Azure Monitor, Great Expectations).
- Evolving the platform architecture to meet emerging needs across the health, social, economic, environmental, and NGO sectors.
- Supporting technical governance, platform standardisation, and cross-government collaboration.
What you bring | Nōu te rourou
We understand transferable skills can come from experience gained from outside of work. We encourage you to be you in your application.
We are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion and lifting our cultural capability. You don't need to be knowledgeable in all these areas already, but you do need to be on board with learning and have a genuine interest and willingness to grow on this journey with us.
You'll be a natural technical leader who thrives in collaborative environments and is comfortable guiding cloud-first strategies. You'll likely have:
- Proven experience designing and delivering cloud-based data platforms at scale - ideally with Azure Databricks, Spark, and Terraform.
- Deep understanding of cloud-native architectures, containerisation (AKS, Docker), and secure data integration patterns.
- Strong knowledge of data governance, metadata management, and compliance (e.g., Unity Catalog, NZISM).
- Experience supporting or mentoring data engineering teams in Agile environments.
- Ability to communicate technical strategy clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Commitment to Stats NZ's values, including honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi and uplifting te ao Māori within your mahi.
Desirable Experience:
- Experience contributing to hybrid delivery models or platform enablement functions.
- Familiarity with data observability tools and platform-level monitoring strategies.
- Involvement with the international data community or cross-agency technical initiatives.
How to apply | Me pēhea te tuku tono
If this sounds like you, click on the Apply now button to be redirected to the application page on our careers site. The position description is located on the right-hand side of the page.
This role closes at 11.55pm on Sunday 25 May. We will be screening applications as we receive them to move swiftly to interview. You may be asked to complete a pre-interview screen via phone or video. Please let us know in your application if we need to make any specific accommodations during our process.
Please reach out to recruitment@stats.govt.nz if you have any questions.
You must have the right to live and work in Aotearoa New Zealand. Background and various pre-employment checks are part of our recruitment process.
Note to Recruitment Agencies: unsolicited CVs will not be accepted.
