{"id":1384494,"url":"https://alion.io/job/westpac-nz-principal-engineer","title":"Principal Engineer","company":{"id":450143,"name":"Westpac NZ","domain":"westpac.co.nz","url":"https://alion.io/company/westpac-nz","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":null},"role":"Industrial Engineering","role_family":"Industrial Engineering","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["New Zealand"],"countries":["NZ"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":56000,"max_usd":137000,"period":"year","method":"global_role_cell_scaled_by_country","sample_n":1961},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"PCI DSS","optional":false},{"name":"Platform Engineering","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-28T09:50:33Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-28","last_verified_at":"2026-10-11T19:07:46Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":13,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":13},"description":"Mō te tūranga | About the Role\nThe Principal Engineer - Cards is a senior enterprise technical leader responsible for shaping technology strategy, target architecture and engineering direction across the Cards domain.\nThe role combines deep technical expertise, strategic thinking and practical delivery experience to ensure technology decisions support customer outcomes, business priorities, operational resilience and the organisation's long-term technology objectives.\nWorking across engineering teams, architecture, product, service and business functions, the Principal Engineer provides authoritative technical leadership, resolves complex cross-domain challenges and drives engineering excellence at scale. The role influences enterprise standards, develops engineering capability and ensures solutions are secure, resilient, scalable, maintainable and aligned with current and future organisational needs.\nWithin the Cards domain, the Principal Engineer serves as the senior technical authority for the Cards Management Platform and associated card issuing ecosystem. The role is responsible for driving the target architecture, engineering standards, integration strategy, resilience and long-term technology roadmap supporting card issuance, servicing, authentication, digital wallets, card controls, scheme integration and customer-facing card capabilities.\nThe Principal Engineer ensures the Cards platform evolves to support future business growth, regulatory requirements, operational resilience and customer experience objectives.\nStrategic Technology Leadership\nDefine and drive the technology strategy, target architecture and engineering roadmap for the Cards domain.\nProvide authoritative technical leadership across multiple squads, services, platforms and complex programmes of work.\nTranslate business strategy and customer needs into clear technology direction, architectural decisions and executable engineering outcomes.\nLead the design of secure, resilient, scalable and maintainable solutions that align with enterprise architecture and industry good practice.\nMake and influence significant technical decisions, clearly communicating options, risks, trade-offs and long-term implications.\nIdentify opportunities to create organisation-wide value through technology simplification, reuse, automation and improved engineering practices.\nEnsure technology investments and engineering decisions progressively move the organisation towards its agreed target architecture.\nCards Domain Leadership\nOwn the technical vision, target architecture and engineering roadmap for the Cards domain.\nProvide technical leadership across the end-to-end Cards ecosystem, ensuring solutions align with business strategy, customer outcomes and architectural principles.\nEstablish engineering standards, architectural patterns and technical guardrails for card issuing, servicing and payments capabilities.\nAct as the senior technical escalation point for significant Cards domain decisions, risks and complex engineering challenges.\nEnsure technology decisions balance delivery outcomes, customer experience, resilience, maintainability and long-term strategic value.\nDrive alignment across Product, Technology, Architecture, Risk and Operations stakeholders.\nCards Platform Architecture\nDefine and govern the architecture supporting: Card lifecycle managementCard issuing and servicingCredit and debit card productsDigital walletsAuthentication and card security servicesCustomer servicing capabilitiesProduct configuration and managementScheme integrationsFraud and risk controls\nLead architecture and design decisions relating to APIs, events, integration patterns and data flows across the Cards ecosystem.\nDrive simplification and standardisation of technology patterns across Cards services and platforms.\nEnsure consistency and reuse of capabilities, services, data models and integration approaches.\nDefine architecture principles supporting scalability, resilience, security, operability and future growth.\nEngineering Excellence\nEstablish and champion engineering principles, standards, patterns, controls and reusable approaches across the Cards domain.\nInfluence enterprise policies and governance frameworks to ensure they remain practical, proportionate and future-focused.\nDrive adoption of modern engineering practices including automation, CI/CD, observability, testing and AI-assisted engineering.\nDevelop engineering roadmaps to improve reliability, performance, maintainability and delivery effectiveness.\nPromote engineering excellence through simplification, automation and continuous improvement.\nOperational Resilience & Risk\nDefine and champion resilience, recovery, observability and operational excellence standards across the Cards domain.\nProvide technical oversight for strategically important initiatives and ensure risks, dependencies and non-functional requirements are actively managed.\nLead technical response and decision-making during significant incidents, systemic failures or emerging technology risks.\nIdentify, prioritise and influence the reduction of technical debt, legacy complexity and operational risk.\nEnsure architecture and engineering decisions appropriately balance customer outcomes, operational risk and regulatory obligations.\nDrive continuous improvement through incident reviews, lessons learned and resilience engineering practices.\nVendor & Strategic Partnerships\nPartner with vendors and strategic technology providers to influence roadmaps, resolve complex issues and achieve sustainable outcomes.\nEvaluate platform capabilities, technical roadmaps and architectural options.\nInfluence technical outcomes and roadmap priorities to align with organisational objectives.\nEnsure solutions maximise standard platform capabilities and minimise unnecessary complexity or customisation.\nBuild trusted relationships with senior Technology, Product, Risk and Business stakeholders.\nEngineering Community & Capability Growth\nBuild and strengthen the engineering community through technical leadership, coaching, mentoring and knowledge sharing.\nDevelop Lead Engineers, Senior Engineers and emerging technical leaders.\nFoster an inclusive, collaborative and high-performing engineering culture.\nCreate opportunities for professional and technical growth across the engineering community.\nBalance strategic leadership with sufficient involvement in technical design and delivery to maintain practical understanding and technical credibility.\nNā tāu rourou | What will you bring?\nEssential\nExtensive experience in Software Engineering, Platform Engineering, Cloud Engineering, Architecture or another relevant technology discipline.\nDemonstrated experience providing strategic technical leadership across large, complex and interconnected technology environments.\nDeep expertise in Cards, Payments, Issuing or Transaction Processing environments.\nStrong understanding of card lifecycle management, card issuing and customer servicing capabilities.\nDemonstrated experience implementing, integrating or operating enterprise card management and issuing platforms.\nProven ability to define technology strategy, target architecture, engineering roadmaps and long-term technical direction.\nStrong architectural capability connecting business strategy, solution design, engineering execution and operational outcomes.\nSignificant experience designing and delivering secure, resilient, scalable and maintainable enterprise technology solutions.\nDemonstrated experience influencing engineering decisions, standards and practices across multiple teams and organisational areas.\nStrong understanding of modern engineering practices including cloud, DevOps, automation, observability, CI/CD, testing and operational resilience.\nStrong knowledge of payments ecosystems, card scheme integrations and card processing flows.\nProven experience leading complex platform implementations involving multiple squads, vendors and stakeholders.\nStrong mentoring and coaching capability with experience developing senior engineers and technical leaders.\nExcellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain complex technical matters to technical and non-technical audiences.\nDeep Expertise In\nCard Issuing\nCard Lifecycle Management\nCustomer Card Servicing\nCredit and Debit Card Products\nAuthentication and Authorisation\nDigital Wallets\nTokenisation\nEMV Standards\nISO8583 Messaging\nMastercard and Visa ecosystems\nPCI DSS\nFraud Controls\nAPI-led Integration\nEvent-Driven Architecture\nDistributed Systems\nHigh Availability Platforms\nResilience Engineering\nPreferred\nExperience working within a large, complex enterprise or highly regulated environment.\nExperience leading large-scale Cards transformation programmes.\nExperience establishing or contributing to engineering standards, architecture frameworks, communities of practice or centres of excellence.\nExperience working with configurable vendor-based platforms.\nExperience supporting digital card capabilities, wallet integrations and tokenisation services.\nExperience with AI-enabled engineering, automation or other emerging technology practices.\nRelevant tertiary qualification in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology or a related discipline.\nRelevant industry certification in architecture, cloud technologies, engineering, security or another applicable technology area.\nKo mātou tēnei | Our Organisation\nAt Westpac, we’re working together to build a fairer and stronger New Zealand for our people, customers, and communities. For over 160 years we’ve been driven by our purpose to Create Better Futures Together.\nWhat makes us unique are the incredible people we’re lucky enough to have walk through our doors every day. The giant ‘W’ on our building doesn’t just stand for Westpac - it says, double you. We’re a place that values, rewards and recognises individuality. Where you can be your whole self, your true self, and your best self. We’re recognised as a place where talent is developed, where passions are fuelled and where ambitions of all shapes and sizes thrive. And it all starts with you!\nTono mai ināianei! | Apply Now!\nApply today with your CV and Cover Letter.\nThe people of Aotearoa, New Zealand hail from many cultures and backgrounds. At Westpac New Zealand, we draw on this enormous talent pool to cultivate a team rich in ability and empowered to reach its full potential. Our aim is to be brave challengers, celebrating our differences and relentlessly advocating for our customers. It starts with us - we believe that when we care deeply and do our best for our people, they’ll do their best for our customers. We encourage people from all walks of life to apply, including those who are neurodiverse, have chronic health conditions or disabilities - your attitude and passion are as important to us as your experience, qualifications and capabilities.\nMahi tahi tātou, kaha ake tātou | Together Greater\nApplications close:\n11 October 2026","description_format":"text","description_chars":11000,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Commercial & Retail Banks"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-28T09:50:33Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":62,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.825,"p_room":0.75,"age_days":11,"expected_fill_days":14,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:late"],"computed_at":"2026-10-10T05:45:15Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/westpac-nz-principal-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/westpac-nz-principal-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-11T22:27:20Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":12308,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":450143},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=450143"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fwestpac-nz-principal-engineer"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fwestpac-nz-principal-engineer"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fwestpac-nz-principal-engineer"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/westpac-nz-principal-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fwestpac-nz-principal-engineer"}]}