Lead Software Engineer

Southern Cross Health Insurance is shaping a healthier Aotearoa New Zealand. Our purpose is simple: empowering our members to live well for longer. We're here to give peace of mind through timely access to quality care, inspire healthier living, and lead positive change across the health system. As a New Zealand-owned, member-based organisation, we're building a future where wellbeing is at the heart of everything we do -- delivering exceptional value for our members and creating an environment where our people thrive.

Now is an exciting time to join us. You'll be part of a high-performing, values-driven team where people are at the heart of everything we do -- and in return for your talent, you'll have the opportunity to grow, make an impact, and be proud of the difference your work makes.

About The Role

Lead. Design. Code. Ship. Maintain.

You’ll be the technical heart of your squad: coding daily, making architectural calls, and guiding technical decisions that balance product priorities with long-term engineering quality.

This is hands-on technical leadership. You’ll help your team navigate trade-offs, drive small, frequent, confident releases, and embed testing from the start - not as a phase at the end. CI/CD optimisation, modern tooling, and ephemeral environments are part of how you work.

You’ll partner closely with Product, Platform, and Architecture to slice work well, manage risk thoughtfully, and communicate trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders.

You coach in a way that builds independence, stay curious about AI and modern engineering practices, and create an environment where people feel safe to challenge assumptions.

If you’re passionate about impact through software engineering, we’d love to talk.

Technical Experience

What you'll bring

• Solid hands-on experience in JS/TS, Node.JS, React, Angular, ASP/.NET/.NET.
• Expertise in Azure, ADO, Git, Containerisation, K8s, GitOps, and Infra-As-Code
• Strong testing capability across unit, contract, component, API, End-2-End
• A CI/CD mindset: reliable pipelines, golden paths over bespoke solutions, ephemeral environments.
• Designs across services and UI with diagnosability and operability baked in.
• Practical experience in secure coding practices, dependency management, secrets handling, least privilege access.
• Strong experience building observable systems: SLOs, alerts, dashboards, and runbooks

Collaboration & Mindset

• Cross-functional approach towards iterative delivery.
• Pragmatic story slicing, estimation, and risk management skills.
• Guidance through partnership, not gatekeeping.
• Experiencing in creating and fostering a space for challenging assumptions.

Who We Are

Ngākau nui. Āhurutanga. Tikanga.

Join a proud diverse team, that's always there, always real, always true. If you thrive in a caring, honest and open culture, we think you’ll love working with us.

We know that it is our team’s culture and wellbeing that will drive us forward. That’s why we prioritise not only professional development opportunities but opportunities to thrive personally, too. We offer exceptional work/life balance and our employees are encouraged to – and rewarded for – living well.

We are proud to have taken the Pride Pledge, reflecting our commitment to inclusion and belonging. We also facilitate an active, employee‑led Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Forum, which includes our Rainbow Network, Māori Network, Pasifika Collective, and Neurodiversity and Whānau Support networks.

If you share our commitment and passion, we'd love to hear from you.