Digital Specialist - Development

Korero mo te turanga - About the role

Location Information contributes to increasing the value of geographic information by developing and managing new and existing data about our land and seas. These are released online for others to use and reuse. Using this data, we provide products and services (maps, charts, and the geospatial reference system) to support critical national functions, such as emergency services responses and maritime safety.

Toitu Te Whenua, LINZ is seeking an intermediate Developer to join our Geospatial Data Engineering Team in Location Information. You'll contribute to exciting projects delivering essential geospatial products and workflows across aerial imagery, elevation, and bathymetry data domains. Demand for LINZ's geospatial data is growing significantly year on year. This role plays a direct part in making sure our infrastructure keeps pace with that demand.

As a Developer on this team, you'll design, deploy, test, and maintain geospatial products, services, and tools in an AWS environment. You'll contribute to a wide range of open-source software projects while working in an agile team with access to exceptional mentors. Your work will involve translating requirements into design, communicating technical ideas clearly to both general and technical audiences, and providing input to user training support and documentation.

At Toitu Te Whenua LINZ, we are committed to developing and promoting an environment where our people feel included and valued. We are looking for someone with the willingness to learn and align to our way of working. We believe skills are transferable, and enthusiasm goes a long way, so consider applying even if you do not think you have all the experience.

He pukenga tou - Skills & Experience

Your approach to the role

We are looking for someone who has a collaborative mindset for product planning, objective setting, release management, and operational escalation. You'll be adaptable and demonstrate initiative in challenging the status quo and proposing enhancements to pipelines, processes, code, and products. It's important that you commit to staying current with technology, development best practices, and geospatial initiatives to ensure LINZ provides well-supported products.

What you'll be working with and need to demonstrate experience in:

• Cloud Infrastructure & DevOps: You'll leverage AWS for infrastructure deployment, monitoring, databases, and computation. Your work will require expertise in GitHub for version control and collaboration, along with understanding of cloud-based service architectures.
• Programming & Development: You'll apply Python and JavaScript/TypeScript for coding contributions to our existing codebase. Your role will involve software development practices that support data processing, scripting, and automation.
• Geospatial Technology: You'll work with geospatial data formats, processing workflows, and spatial analysis to support the delivery of essential geospatial products.

Experience in the following areas would be an advantage

• Development experience that supports open geospatial data pipelines and metadata creation, maintenance and validation (GDAL, PDAL, STAC)
• Data Engineering at scale (Argo Workflows, Kubernetes)
• Familiarity with asynchronous, distributed architectures, serverless (AWS EKS, S3, Docker)
• Experience working with infrastructure as code (AWS CDK)
• A strong grasp of DevOps best practices (GitHub Actions)

The expected appointing range for this role is $100,000 - $115,000 depending on skills and experience:

Te Takinatanga - Our Story

Toitu Te Whenua plays a vital role in understanding, developing, and caring for New Zealand's whenua, moana and arawai (land, sea and waterways). Whether you're developing our products and services to support our customers, managing the Crown estate, engaging with our iwi partners, or helping us be an effective regulator, your contribution can make a difference. Our mahi helps New Zealanders have confidence that the development of our land, communities and country is being planned from an informed and expert position that balances environmental, social, cultural, and economic considerations, now and for future generations.

Our Kia Toipoto Intentions - Public Service Gender, Maori, Pacific and Ethnic Pay Gap Action Plan

Toitu Te Whenua is a diverse team of individuals with different experience and perspectives. This drives our culture and high performance. We know that people from underrepresented groups and women in particular don't apply for roles if they're not a 100% match, but we're not looking for perfection, we're looking for potential. As an inclusive and supportive employer, we value difference and want to encourage anyone interested to apply, regardless of whether you tick all the boxes or not. As an organisation we embrace diversity, encourage work life balance and have a flexible approach to the way we work which means you will quickly feel connected and valued.

Tono mai - How to Apply

If you're eyeing up this role and believe you've got what it takes, please apply, or get in touch with the team.

To apply, please click "Apply Online." You'll be taken through to our Toitu Te Whenua Careers Centre where you'll be able to review further information about the responsibilities and accountabilities of this role in the Position Description. You'll be able to complete your online application form and upload a copy of your CV/Cover Letter.

Please note, while applications close on Friday 26 June 2026, we will be reviewing applications as they are received and may progress with suitable applicants prior to the application closing date. Therefore, please apply as soon as possible if you are interested in this position. We also reserve the right to extend the advertising date if no suitable candidates have been identified.

For tracking and evaluation purposes, all applications must be submitted via our on-line process. You must have the legal right to live and work in New Zealand to be eligible for this position.

You may notice that the Position Description title for this role (Digital Specialist Level Rua/Two) doesn't match the advertised title. At Toitu Te Whenua we design our roles around shared capabilities (rather than focusing on tasks). This means our position descriptions are broad, one position description can cover many roles, this is known as Broad Based Role (BBR). Using BBR allows us to be responsive to our customers and to strengthen the connections across our organisation. It also gives us the flexibility to provide wider opportunities to our people, to further their careers.

If you have any questions about this role or working at Toitu Te Whenua, please email [email protected] and our People Services Team will be in touch with you.