Principal Engineer (Cloud)

Job description

New Zealand Police is working with the community to make New Zealanders be safe and feel safe.
With over 13,000 staff, we provide policing services 24 hours a day, every day.
We operate by land, sea and air, manage over 860,000 emergency calls a year and are always actively preventing crime and crashes.
We're working towards specific goals and targets that highlight our intent to work collaboratively with iwi and communities, other government sectors and business partners to deliver 'Our Business' and achieve long-term change.
Principal Engineer – Cloud!
* Based at Royal NZ Police College - Wellington * Police Employee * Permanent/Full Time * NAV * JR -
E t?

ki te kei o te waka, kia pakia koe e nga ngaru o te wa.
Stand at the stern of the canoe and feel the spray of the future biting at your face
Mo te tunga | About the role
With a primary hub in Wellington, and a presence throughout the country, NZ Police ICT delivers modern digital solutions both directly and through specialist vendor partnerships.
This is an exciting new cloud specialist role that has the ability to shape our future cloud platforms.
You will be part of a forward-thinking group that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement with a focus on delivering great outcomes to our frontline.
We are looking for a seasoned Principal Engineer to be at the technical heart of our cloud platforms.
You won't just build; you'll lead, mentor, and orchestrate across our multi-cloud environments including both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services.
You're a natural leader, a hands-on cloud expert, and a problem-solver who thrives on getting things done.
You can design a scalable architecture one minute and then be debugging complex infrastructure as code the next.
You'll be instrumental in steering and mentoring our engineering teams towards technical excellence in cloud while ensuring our infrastructure is secure, cost-effective, and reliable.
Key Accountabilities:
* Design and lead the implementation of complex, highly available, and secure cloud-native solutions in Azure and AWS.
* Leverage your deep knowledge of cloud services to optimise costs and performance, ensuring we get maximum value from our cloud investments.
* Support our cloud roadmap by exploring new technologies and services to keep us at the forefront of cloud engineering.
* Enhance our pipelines and champion automation of everything possible.
* Act as a technical mentor, teaching and guiding our talented engineers, and fostering a culture of automation, and continuous improvement.
* Get your hands dirty with Infrastructure as Code, championing automation across our public and private cloud Kubernetes environments.
* Be a champion for cloud security, implementing robust controls, ensuring compliance, and building security into the heart of our designs.
* Create onboarding guides, reusable CI/CD templates, and enablement resources and work with developers on adoption.
* Advocate for developer experience and provide hands-on support.
* Collaborate on platform improvements based on real-world feedback.
* Stay up to date with new and upcoming platforms features and capabilities and ensure the development community is able to take advantage of new offerings.
* You will provide third level technical support for the container platform and be a direct conduit for development issues.
He aha taau e kawe mai | What you'll bring
Whilst we are looking for skills, knowledge and experience relevant to the role, we also place high importance on your state of mind, the alignment of your values with ours, your ability to contribute to and build high performing teams, and the way that you lead yourself or others.
To be successful in this role you will require the following:
* Excellent communication and collaboration skills—you will enjoy helping other product groups and your colleagues succeed.
* Demonstrable expertise in both Azure and AWS.
You know your VNets from your VPCs and your AKS from your EKS.
* Deep experience in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and associated toolsets.
* Hands on experience of Kubernetes, and containerization.
* A solid understanding of cloud networking, security, and IAM principles.
* Strong proficiency in scripting languages * Relevant professional cloud certifications are a huge plus, preferably architect level or demonstratable equivalent experience.
* Familiarity with observability tools and agile delivery practices.
* Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills
Whakaritenga motuhake | Special requirements
* This role is based at RNZPC Porirua.
* Applicants must be a NZ Citizen, Resident or have valid work rights for NZ in order to apply.
* This role requires an on-call element, which may mean working outside of regular business hours.
This is on a rostered basis in conjunction with the wider support team.
* A relevant tertiary qualification in technology is preferred.
This role is Strategic People Leader level.
You can refer to Indicators for Success for further information on the requirements
To view the position description for this role please copy and paste this link into a new browser:

Mo tatou | About us
New Zealand Police is the lead agency responsible for preventing crime and enhancing community safety.
It works in partnership with individuals, communities, businesses, and other public sector agencies towards the vision of making New Zealand the safest country.
Police is the government's largest front-line response agency with around 15,000 staff in large and small communities all over New Zealand and in liaison and policing development roles overseas.
Your development is highly valued at NZ Police.
Our employees enjoy significant investment in their development not only at an individual level, but also at the team and community practice level.
We work hard to match you with work that will both play to your strengths and challenge you in new ways.
The work you'll be engaged in is real, tangible work that directly benefits our frontline and communities.
Taken all together, this means we can offer you career path opportunities to progress in your chosen profession and become a more well-rounded, experienced leader, with opportunities across the range of work we support.
To view more detailed information about our recruitment process along with further details about requirements please click below link:
Applicant Information Pack (External)
Tono inaianei | Apply now
If this position sounds like you, click apply now and submit a tailored CV.
You will be required to submit an application form.
Before confirmation of hire, pre-employment checks will be undertaken which include reference, drug and alcohol testing and police vetting prior to any written offer being made.
For further information on the application process, please copy and paste this URL:
All applications must be submitted online and will not be accepted directly via email.
All applicants must have the right to work in New Zealand.
If you are an internal applicant, you must apply internally through the police system.
You must provide an alternative contact email address and state your future commitments should you be successful in the next stage of the recruitment process.
Please note: Deadline for applications is 3:00 pm on Friday 17th October 2025.
Applications may be reviewed prior to the close date as well as contact made with candidates.
If you have any questions about this vacancy, please contact ******

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