Senior Director of Engineering

Department: Delivery Engineering Employment Type: Permanent - Full Time Location: Auckland, NZ Description Overview of the Role We are seeking an inspiring, collaborative, and people-first Senior Director of Engineering to provide executive leadership across our major Southern Hemisphere hubs in New Zealand and Melbourne. Reporting directly to the Chief Technology Officer, you will serve as a high-visibility leadership voice proxy in the region, bridging the timezone gap with healthy autonomy and strategic alignment. This role requires a leader who thrives in a \"high-autonomy, high-alignment\" framework with a mandate to amplify the global technology vision, ensuring we operate as a unified, cohesive engineering ecosystem rather than a fragmented, two-headed operation. Crucially, you will lead our Southern engineering community into an AI-first future, empowering and upskilling the next generation of AI-powered engineering teams. While you must possess the technical depth to hold natural credibility with elite engineering talent, your primary passion lies in championing people, pioneering AI-augmented development workflows, and building an environment where high-performing teams thrive. Your Key Responsibilities Regional Leadership & CTO Proxy Serve as the executive technology voice and presence in the Southern Hemisphere, ensuring teams feel connected, inspired, and aligned with global goals. Act as a strategic partner to the CTO, operating with a high degree of autonomy to run regional operations while maintaining lockstep global alignment. Maintain an exceptionally close, collaborative relationship with Northern Hemisphere leadership to ensure seamless cross-border technical community alignment. Effectively synthesise and broadcast global business context down to delivery teams, translating high-level strategy into local operational focus. Empowering AI-Powered Engineering Teams & Culture Champion a vibrant, high-performance culture rooted in psychological safety, continuous learning, accountability, and the Gentrack core values. Lead the cultural and technical shift toward AI-assisted software engineering, empowering developers to leverage generative AI and automation safely and effectively. Actively mentor, coach, and grow engineering managers, directors, and technical leaders across the New Zealand and Melbourne hubs. Drive initiatives focused on engineer engagement, modern upskilling, and making Gentrack the premier destination for regional tech talent. Delivery Optimisation, Productivity & Tooling Evaluate, refine, and champion modern engineering processes and operational frameworks to significantly improve engineering velocity and throughput. Partner with Product, Delivery, and Architecture organisations to optimise the Product Development Lifecycle (PDLC), eliminating delivery bottlenecks. Integrate AI-augmented developer tooling into our daily workflows, actively measuring productivity improvements and removing administrative friction from the delivery pipeline. Infuse a product-minded execution model within engineering teams, shifting focus away from bespoke delivery toward reusable, scalable capabilities. Technical Credibility & Execution Alignment Maintain a strong, pragmatic understanding of modern cloud architectures, distributed systems, and SaaS delivery paradigms to maintain deep architectural credibility. Partner closely with the Chief Architect and Principal Engineers to implement automated architectural guardrails that keep AI-generated code secure, robust, and in check across our codebases. Support regional go-to-market (GTM) and customer success teams as a senior technical leader in high-profile local client engagements and strategic partner discussions. What We’re Looking For 12 to 15 years of technology experience, with at least 5+ years operating in a senior executive engineering leadership capacity (Director / Senior Director) within an enterprise SaaS or cloud-native software business. Proven track record of managing and transforming complex engineering organisations across multiple locations or regional hubs. Demonstrated success in designing, scaling, and rolling out modern agile delivery methodologies, engineering metrics frameworks, and AI-assisted development practices that visibly increased organisational productivity. An awesome, inspiring, and infectious leader who genuinely loves building world-class team dynamics, modern processes, and cutting-edge engineering cultures. A low-ego, highly collaborative executive who aims to amplify collective leadership rather than carve out an isolated silo or introduce a competing agenda. A forward-thinking technology leader with a passion for developer enablement and practical experience fostering AI-powered engineering workflows. A technical mind who values pragmatic delivery, business impact, and commercial clarity over theoretical perfection. Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, with a proven ability to maintain strong, highly operational relationships asynchronously across global timezones. What We Can Offer You Competitive salary Annual discretionary bonus Private medical insurance Employee assistant programme Life assurance policy One-off wellness subsidy Enhanced parental leave Hybrid working arrangements Great office environment (including a tennis court) A wide variety of learning and development programmes and opportunities #J-18808-Ljbffr