AI Developer

We’re working with a well-established New Zealand organisation that is investing heavily in AI and digital product development and is looking to add one or two AI Engineers / Developers to its Christchurch-based technology team.

This is not a role for someone who has simply experimented with AI tools. The team is looking for developers who have genuinely worked with AI in practice, ideally building and implementing AI-powered solutions in a commercial environment.

The focus will be on building AI agents and integrating them into real-world products and workflows, alongside broader software development within a Microsoft-based environment.

A major programme of work is the development of a new digital workspace for frontline users, bringing together operational tools, workflow automation, search, task management and AI-driven assistance into one environment. The goal is to use AI where it genuinely improves the user experience and removes unnecessary manual work, rather than adding automation for the sake of it.

You’ll be joining an established technology team with a strong delivery pipeline, significant investment behind it, and a number of new digital products already being developed and taken to market.

What you’ll be doing

You’ll work across the design, development and implementation of AI-enabled solutions, with a particular focus on agent-based systems.

This could include:

• Designing and building AI agents that interact with internal systems, APIs and business workflows
• Developing AI-powered functionality within existing and new digital products
• Working with LLMs and applying them to practical business problems
• Integrating AI models with custom .NET applications and data sources
• Building guardrails, validation and appropriate human-in-the-loop processes
• Evaluating different AI models and tools depending on the use case
• Working closely with developers and business stakeholders to move ideas from experimentation into production
• Contributing to broader software engineering work where required
• Helping establish sensible engineering practices around AI development, testing and deployment

The team is enthusiastic about AI, but equally conscious that good engineering discipline still matters. They are looking for someone who understands where automation adds value, where human oversight is important, and when conventional development is still the better answer.

What we’re looking for

You’ll already be a capable software developer and have moved beyond simply using AI productivity tools into actually building AI solutions.

Ideally, you’ll bring experience across some of the following:

• Commercial experience developing AI or LLM-based applications
• Building AI agents, agentic workflows or autonomous/semi-autonomous systems
• OpenAI, Anthropic or other large language models
• Prompt design, tool calling, structured outputs and model integration
• RAG, embeddings, vector search or similar AI application patterns
• Integrating AI with APIs, enterprise systems or internal data sources
• C# and .NET development
• Microsoft Azure
• GitHub and modern CI/CD practices
• GitHub Copilot, Cursor or similar AI development tools
• Testing, validation and observability of AI-powered applications
• Understanding of security, privacy, governance and human-in-the-loop design

You don’t need to have worked with every technology listed above. More important is that you understand the concepts behind modern AI application development and can demonstrate where you have applied them in practice.

Experience in booking platforms or transaction-based environments would be useful, but it is not essential.

The environment

This is a predominantly Microsoft environment, with .NET and Azure at the core of the technology stack.

The wider development team is actively experimenting with and using a range of AI platforms, including OpenAI and Anthropic, rather than committing to a single ecosystem. They have also developed internal AI solutions and custom LLM integrations within their .NET environment.

There is a strong product pipeline beyond AI as well, including internal platforms, customer-facing digital products, enterprise systems and products being taken into new international markets.

What’s on offer

• Competitive salary
• Christchurch-based role
• Hybrid working, typically two-three days per week in the office
• Established and experienced technology team
• Significant pipeline of AI and digital product work
• Opportunity to build AI products that will be used in real operational environments
• Birthday leave
• Insurance benefits

This role needs someone who is already based in Christchurch or is willing to relocate. The business has previously trialled fully remote arrangements and is intentionally building the team locally.

If you’re a strong developer who has moved beyond AI experimentation and can point to genuine examples of AI systems, agents or LLM-powered applications you’ve built, we’d be interested in having a chat!