Principal Engineer, Cloud and Infrastructure

Job Description:

Ratonga Matihiko | Digital Services
Located in Ōtautahi | Christchurch, Aotearoa | New Zealand

• Permant position, 37.5 hours per week
• Generous employer contribution to superannuation (up to 6.75%)

At the University of Canterbury, our digital services underpin teaching, research and business operations. We are seeking an exceptional technical leader to join our Cloud and Infrastructure team as Principal Engineer, the highest individual contributor engineering role within the operational infrastructure function.

Āu Mahi | What You Will Do
This role provides technical leadership across a diverse hybrid environment spanning public cloud, datacentre infrastructure, virtualisation, storage, backup, monitoring and associated operational platforms. The successful candidate will shape engineering direction, influence platform strategy, provide operational architectural leadership, and contribute to the ongoing resilience and evolution of critical University services. In this role you will:

• Act as a recognised technical authority within the Cloud and Infrastructure domain, leading the architecture and direction of operational technologies and guiding complex technical decision-making.
• Provide authoritative advice on service resilience, risk, security, supportability and long-term sustainability.
• Work across Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, physical and virtual server platforms, enterprise storage, backup and recovery, monitoring, automation and related infrastructure technologies.
• Shape engineering standards, platform direction, governance practices and technical investment decisions across an established enterprise hybrid environment.
• Provide technical leadership during significant incidents, high-risk changes, platform modernisation and complex service improvement initiatives.
• Develop engineering capability through mentoring, peer leadership and the promotion of consistent engineering practices across Digital Services.

Mōu | Who You Are

You will have deep technical experience in cloud, infrastructure, systems administration, platform engineering, or related operational technology domains, with 5–8 years of relevant experience appropriate to a Principal Engineer level. A deep understanding of a complex and varied tertiary environment is essential for success in this role.

You will also be able to demonstrate:

• Strong expertise across infrastructure technologies such as Windows and Linux server administration, networking, storage, backup, monitoring, virtualisation, scripting, or public cloud services including Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, together with a strong understanding of the operational practices and architectural considerations required across both cloud and datacentre environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical design direction, architecture of operational technologies and associated deliverables, technical assurance, and high-impact change activity.
• Substantial experience working within a large tertiary institution, research-intensive organisation or similarly diverse knowledge-based environment, understanding competing and interdependent needs of teaching and learning, research, specialised infrastructure, student-facing services, enterprise operations, security, compliance and a broad stakeholder community.
• Demonstrate an understanding not only the technology, but also the context in which technology operates within a modern university, and applied senior technical leadership within that environment.

Mahi Ngātahi | Who You Will Work With
You will be part of Digital Services, working alongside platform, infrastructure and faculty enablement teams while partnering with academic and professional staff across the University. You will also engage with senior stakeholders, project teams and external technology partners to shape UC’s computing environment and support services that enable teaching, learning and research.

Ngā Painga o UC | Why UC
At UC, being part of our team means more than just a job. We are committed to supporting our kaimahi | staff’s career and wellbeing with benefits designed to help our kaimahi grow and feel connected, supported and valued.

We offer a range of benefits, for more information, please visit us: https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/about-uc/work-at-uc/benefits-working-uc . (For more information about Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury, please visit https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/ )

The closing date for this position is: 9 October 2026 (midnight, NZ time) FIVE WORKING DAYS
Please note applications will be reviewed after the close date.

Pēhea te tono mai | How You Apply

Applications for this position must be submitted via our careers website and should include a cover letter and resume.

Please note, we do not accept applications by email, however we are happy to answer your queries in relation to the application process, please forward these to [email protected]

You must have Aotearoa New Zealand or Australian citizenship/permanent residency to be considered for this role.

Please note, this is an onsite position.

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