Lead Developer

Your new role
We are looking for an experienced Lead Developer who can combine strong hands-on development skills with technical leadership. You’ll work across multiple projects while also supporting BAU applications, helping shape development plans, engineering standards and technical direction.

Working closely with the Software Engineering Manager, Project Manager and wider technical teams, you’ll lead development activities while remaining actively involved in designing, coding, troubleshooting and delivering solutions.

This is a contract opportunity starting ASAP and running through to 30 June 2027, with an hourly rate of up to $130 per hour.

Responsibilities

• Lead and contribute to hands-on application and integration development
• Develop solutions primarily using Java 17 or later
• Provide technical direction and guidance to developers
• Lead development planning, estimation and technical delivery activities
• Contribute to software design, architecture and technical reviews
• Design and develop Kafka publishers, consumers and topic-based messaging solutions
• Support bespoke enterprise applications and SaaS/PaaS platforms
• Provide technical leadership for Level 3 application support
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment practices
• Support applications deployed across Kubernetes and OpenShift environments
• Work across both project delivery and BAU initiatives
• Troubleshoot application performance and distributed system issues
• Mentor developers and contribute to improved engineering standards and practices
• Work closely with project managers, architects, designers and business stakeholders

Requirements

• Strong commercial development experience using Java 17 or later, ideally Java 21
• Strong understanding of software engineering best practices, coding standards and design patterns
• Practical experience with Apache Kafka, including publishers, consumers and topic-based messaging
• Experience with PostgreSQL or comparable enterprise relational databases
• Strong experience using Git within collaborative development environments
• Experience deploying and supporting applications using Kubernetes and/or OpenShift
• Strong CI/CD experience, ideally using GitLab
• Experience working with Agile/Scrum practices and tools including Jira and Confluence
• Proven technical leadership experience within software development teams
• Strong application support, troubleshooting and problem-solving capability
• Understanding of AWS core services and cloud architecture principles
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability technologies such as Elasticsearch, Logstash, Prometheus, Grafana and Kibana
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong stakeholder management skills across technical and business teams
• Python development experience would be advantageous but is not essential

Perks and benefits

• Contract through to 30 June 2027
• Hourly rate of up to $130 per hour
• Opportunity to combine hands-on development with technical leadership
• Work across complex enterprise applications and integrations
• Exposure to modern Java, Kafka, Kubernetes, OpenShift, AWS and DevOps technologies
• Hybrid working - 3 days in office 2 home.

You MUST be based in WELLINGTON to be considered for this role

If this sounds like you then HIT APPLY NOW! You must have a valid working visa for NZ.