Platform Manager

Our customers never think about infrastructure. That's the point.

At Phocas, we've spent 20+ years building financial planning and analytics products that are powerful yet simple to use. We've grown to nearly 300 people across the globe, and our Product & Technology team in Christchurch is at the heart of it. We move fast, learn from our mistakes, and use AI to speed up how we work.

Behind our products sits a multi-region AWS SaaS platform serving mid-market customers across the US, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia: established Windows and SQL Server workloads running alongside containerised and serverless services. We're looking for a Platform Manager to lead the team that keeps it running, keeps it secure, and keeps it moving forward.

What you'll do

• Lead the platform team, owning the availability, performance, security and cost of our AWS platform.
• Lead the team's adoption of AI tools and agentic workflows, with sensible checks on what they produce.
• Turn strategy into a clear, sequenced roadmap, and see it through to measurable outcomes.
• Keep AWS spend visible and efficient as we grow, from attribution and rightsizing to commitment planning.
• Set the standard for infrastructure as code, CI/CD, monitoring, logging and access control, favouring simple, supportable solutions.
• Get hands-on when it counts: lead incident response and root cause analysis, and know the architecture first-hand.
• Build a high-trust team and work closely with neighbouring teams like Engineering Enablement.

What you'll bring

• Extensive experience running large, complex platforms, including several years leading teams.
• Recent hands-on engineering experience in high-scale, 24/7 operations.
• Deep AWS fundamentals: networking, compute, storage, resilience, capacity management and security, including IAM and least-privilege design.
• A track record managing AWS costs at scale, including attribution, forecasting and optimisation.
• Hands-on experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform/Terragrunt) and running CI/CD pipelines.
• Comfort operating a mixed estate, Windows/IIS and self-managed SQL Server on EC2 alongside ECS, Lambda and AWS Batch, and modernising it incrementally where it delivers real benefit.
• Practical experience embedding AI tools into engineering or operations workflows.
• Familiarity with our stack is a bonus: Terraform/Terragrunt with Atlantis, GitHub Actions, Octopus Deploy, Elastic, HashiCorp Vault.
• A pragmatic, outcomes-focused approach and clear, straightforward communication.

Why work at Phocas?

• The people: when we ask what people love most about working here, it's always the same answer
• Real ownership: this is a platform that matters, serving customers across five regions, and you'll shape how it evolves
• AI-forward culture: we use AI to improve how we build and operate, and this role is at the centre of that
• 10% PD time: one day a fortnight dedicated to learning and development, no questions asked
• Sunny Sydenham office: spacious, central, with parking for cars, bikes, and scooters
• Benefits: Southern Cross health insurance, life, TPD and income protection, extra paid parental leave, and more
• Flexibility: hybrid working and flexible hours

Phocas is an Accredited Employer and we support international talent, but due to current visa settings and processing times, we can only consider applicants with current New Zealand working rights.

Phocas is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or veteran status.

Recruiters, please note: We don't accept unsolicited agency resumes.

Phocas Software is a profitable, growing SaaS company with a loyal customer base and a category-leading product. With a clear path toward scaling from $70M to $250M and a reimagined GTM structure, this is a prime moment to join and shape the future of how we deliver value to customers.

We know that fun is different for everyone. So, if you want to try out innovative approaches to sales, lead a project, save the planet, or spend more time with your favourite people outside work, you’ll have our full support.

As long as you’re doing what brings you joy, the rest falls into place. Think less stress, higher performance, more energy and all-round nicer human. Your friends and family will be delighted.

Create your happy place