Tech Lead

Stuff Digital reaches 2.1 million Kiwis a month online across our stuff.co.nz news platform. Our audience, editorial and consumer platforms run hot, deploying to production several times a week, into systems serving real traffic, real revenue and real public-interest journalism. We’re hiring a Tech Lead to embed within one of our two product development squads, grow the engineers in it, and shape technical direction well beyond it.

This is a hands-on, in-house role. You’ll lead a team of 2–3 engineers directly and have meaningful technical influence across our wider team. You’ll be in code, design conversations and PRs that matter. You’ll also be one of the most senior architectural voices in our engineering function: decisions about solution design, AI integration patterns, build-vs-buy and where we invest engineering effort across the business will involve you, and some will sit with you.

You’ll be working with a passionate team and fast moving wider business who care a lot, both about what they are building, but the problems we are trying to solve to ensure journalism is sustainable during a time of massive change.

If your recent work has been advisory from a vendor or consultancy seat, this likely isn’t the right fit. We’re hiring someone who’s been on-call for what they’ve designed.

What you’d own in the first 6–12 months

• Technical direction of your team, deploying on a regular basis to consumer-scale systems.
• How we integrate AI and LLMs into our products and our SDLC, pragmatically, in production, with the privacy and editorial care a media business needs.
• Consumer-facing performance, how our systems hold up under news spikes, what we measure, what we improve.
• Coaching for the engineers in your team and influence on those outside it: 1:1s, growth conversations, code review culture, hiring.

Tell us about one system you led that’s still running in production. What the deploy cadence was, what you’d change if you started again, and how the engineers on that team are doing now.

What We’re Looking For

• 7+ years building software, including several years as a Tech Lead, Staff or equivalent inside a product engineering team.
• A coaching track record we can talk about by name. Engineers you’ve grown, hired, or levelled up. We’ll ask.
• Architectural depth across distributed systems, cloud, APIs and data, applied in services you’ve actually run, not just designed. You can hold your own on event-driven patterns, scale and performance trade-offs, and build-vs-buy calls the business will live with for years.
• Comfort shipping fast: multi-deploy-a-week cadence, ownership of what you put into production.
• Hands-on experience integrating LLMs or other AI services into production, engineering, not slideware.
• Awareness of NZ privacy requirements, WCAG AA and the security and compliance considerations of a high-trust media platform.
• Ability to take a technical decision into a business conversation and come out with alignment on both sides.

Think you can do the job? Then apply now and start your journey with Stuff today.

Ka oti rānei i a koe tēnei mahi? Kāti, tono mai ināianei kia tīmata ai tō haerenga me Stuff i tēnei rā.

Stuff champions inclusion. Be it gender, ethnicity, beliefs, abilities or experiences - we know that diversity brings another lens through which we all learn, connect and grow.

E kōkiri nei a Stuff i te whāinga kia whai wāhi ai te katoa. Hāunga te ira, te iwi, ngā whakapono, ngā āheinga, ngā wheako rānei o te tangata - e mōhio nei tātou mā te kanorau e whai tirohanga hou ai, e ako ai, e tūhono ai, e whanake anō ai tātou katoa.

As we are committed to creating a workplace that reflects the diverse communities in New Zealand, we will always invite and encourage applications from people of all genders, ethnicities, disabilities and ages. We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all.

Nā runga i tā mātou ū ki tētahi taiao mahi e whakaatu ana i te kanorau o ngā hapori i Aotearoa, i te ao, i te pō, ka pōhiringia, ka ākina anō ngā tono mahi a te marea whānui, hāunga te ira, te iwi, te hauātanga, te pakeke rānei. E ū nei mātou ki te whai kia wātea ai ā mātou ara whai mahi ki te katoa i runga i te mana taurite.

Disclaimer: Stuff does not accept unsolicited agency resumes. Stuff is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.