Job Description

  • Lead the design and build of a new enterprise data platform from the ground up
  • Join a high-growth New Zealand agritech business with significant influence on technical direction
  • Combine hands-on engineering, data leadership, and people leadership in a highly visible role


About the Role
We are seeking an experienced Data Lead to own and evolve the data capability across a growing agritech organisation. This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for designing and building a modern data platform that brings together multiple product ecosystems, partner integrations, and complex operational datasets. You’ll play a key role in consolidating existing platforms, establishing data engineering best practices, and creating the foundations for analytics, reporting, and future AI-driven capabilities. Working closely with the CTO, Application Lead, and Integration Lead, you’ll help shape the organisation’s technical strategy while building a scalable platform that supports growth across New Zealand and Australia.

Key Responsibilities

  • Design and build a unified cloud-based data platform across multiple products and data domains
  • Develop and maintain scalable ETL/ELT pipelines, APIs, and integration frameworks
  • Establish modern data engineering standards, CI/CD practices, and automation processes
  • Build and manage data lakes and analytics-ready datasets using AWS technologies
  • Lead data quality, validation, reconciliation, and governance initiatives
  • Deliver inbound and outbound integrations with customers, partners, and external platforms
  • Define and execute the data roadmap across reporting, analytics, and insight generation
  • Mentor, grow, and lead a high-performing data team
  • Partner with business, product, and technology leaders to turn data into customer value


About You
Essential Experience

  • Proven experience leading data engineering or data platform initiatives
  • Strong expertise in ETL/ELT development, APIs, integrations, and modern data architectures
  • Advanced SQL and hands-on PostgreSQL experience
  • Strong Python engineering skills, including PySpark
  • Experience with AWS data services including Glue, Lambda, Step Functions, and S3
  • Proven experience building and managing cloud-based data platforms and data lakes
  • Demonstrated people leadership experience with the ability to mentor and grow technical teams
  • Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills


Highly Desirable

  • Agritech, IoT, telemetry, or machine-generated data experience
  • Experience with geospatial and time-series datasets
  • Streaming data architecture experience
  • Business intelligence, analytics, or machine learning exposure
  • Understanding of New Zealand and Australian compliance or environmental reporting requirements


What We’re Looking For
You’ll be a technically strong Data Leader who enjoys building platforms from scratch, solving complex data challenges, and creating scalable solutions that support business growth. Equally comfortable in architecture discussions and hands-on delivery, you’ll have the ambition to become a key technical partner to the CTO and help shape the future direction of the organisation.

Apply Now
If you’re passionate about modern data platforms, cloud technologies, and leading teams in a fast-growing technology business, we’d love to hear from you. Ref 145931. 

Applicants must have the legal right to work in New Zealand.


Apply now

Posted by
Simon Meehan
Senior Consultant
Having worked in various roles within the New Zealand Telco industry, Simon decided a change was needed and joined the Absolute IT team as a Consultant in 2021.
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