Principal Data Engineer (Wellington or Christchurch)

Meridian is the largest producer of renewable electricity in Aotearoa and we strive to deliver clean energy for a fairer and healthier world. We only generate electricity from 100% renewable resources – wind, water and sun, because we believe that’s the best way forward for our planet and our communities. And, we’re doing what we can to help Aotearoa reduce their carbon emissions and supporting others in our communities to do the same.  

Together, our two brands, Meridian and Powershop retail electricity to more than 380,000 homes, businesses and farms across New Zealand. Now that’s a pretty impressive combo!   

Mō te tūranga | What you’ll be doing     

It’s an exciting time to join our Retail team which has undergone a significant change to adopt new modern ways of working. Committed to making energy cleaner and cheaper for Aotearoa New Zealand, our Retail structure is made up of a network of empowered teams, united by a shared purpose and clear goals, equipped with the skills and capabilities to deliver value to customers end to end. 

Reporting to the Data & Architecture Practice Lead, the Principal Data Engineer is a key leader within the practice, playing a pivotal role in shaping and executing data and AI architecture and engineering across retail to align with business goals. You will drive the design, delivery, and management of the retail data and AI platform, pipelines, and products, working within squads or as an enabler. Your responsibilities include designing and implementing modular and scalable data and AI architectures and data models, ensuring retail data and platforms serve all required data personas, and developing and managing pipelines from ingestion to serving, including automated quality using DataOps practices. You’ll be helping to ensure our products are providing a customer experience second to none.   

In this role, you will lead the transition of the retail data practice to modern and AI-supported approaches, ensuring data is accessible and trusted, and mentor other data practitioners, fostering a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. You’ll ensure platform high availability, performance, observability, privacy, and security, as well as contribute to enterprise governance, and design and implement retail principles, patterns, and standards. Collaboration with retail cross-functional teams and enterprise ICT will be essential to your success in this role. 

Ngā pukenga kei a koe mō tenei tūranga | What you’ll bring 

We are seeking a data leader who has a strong track record with modern data platforms, such as Databricks and AWS or Azure native services, leading architecture and execution, including CI/CD. You’ll have proven experience in collaborating with business and product teams to achieve shared outcomes at pace, as well as demonstrated ability to lead and mentor other data practitioners. Your extensive experience in designing, building, and maintaining scalable ETL/ELT data pipelines, using Spark for data at scale, will be invaluable.   

The ideal candidate is someone who possesses strong data modelling expertise across the data lifecycle, and has proficient programming skills in languages such as Pyspark, SQL, Python, and Terraform for IaC (Infrastructure as Code). You will assist with the technical upskilling and coaching of the rest of the team, and act as a change agent, being able to explain the reasons for changes in positive ways. You also have a good understanding of how to deal with different personalities and possess strong communication skills, especially when working with other data practitioners. You’ll be a proactive leader with the ability to drive initiatives and navigate ambiguity effectively. 

He aha koe i hono mai ai ki a mātou? | Why join us?      

We’re a great place to work with plenty of opportunities and career development for those that want it. We value and live by three ‘How to Be’s’: ‘be gutsy’, working together by ‘being in the waka’ and doing the right thing by ‘being a good human’.  

We embrace diversity and inclusion and ensure that everyone feels like they belong, are welcomed, feel valued, and feel comfortable to bring their whole selves to work. We want all our people to be the best that they can be, so we make sure that there’s room for everyone to be exactly who they are. We believe that fun is good for you, and we make sure that our office vibe reflects that. We support each other and celebrate our successes.  

Sustainability sits firmly in our DNA – both socially and environmentally – and we’re doing what we can to help Aotearoa reduce their carbon emissions and we’re helping support others in our generation communities to do the same. 

Ngā painga ki a mātou | What we can offer    

We value work/life balance so our WFH and flexible work options (where possible) make things easier for you and your whānau. We also offer: 

• an attractive and competitive salary package that’s reviewed annually, performance-incentive plus discounts from a number of partnerships 
• Southern Cross Healthcare - Wellbeing One insurance, funded scheme for eligible employees to give you that extra peace of mind   
• enhanced leave provisions: three company paid days (over the holiday period), enhanced parental leave and options to buy up to 12 days additional leave 
• life, trauma and income protection insurance (which we hope you won’t need!) 
• enhanced KiwiSaver contributions 
• access to the Meridian employee share scheme 
• excellent learning and development opportunities, we want you to be the best version of yourself and will help you get there!  
• award winning wellbeing programme that provides support whenever and wherever you need it  
• employee discounts off your power with Meridian or Powershop, every bit counts  
• a one-off $400 payment to support your work from home set-up (if needed) 

Tono mai ināianei tonu | Apply now    

All in all, we’re an awesome place to work. If this sounds like you and you want to bring your energy and use your power to make a difference (pun intended), then apply today and tell us why!  

To view the full Position Description please click here – we’re not necessarily looking for someone who ticks all the boxes (an elusive unicorn), so if you think you have what it takes but don't meet every requirement in the PD, we strongly encourage you to apply!   

If you have any general enquiries, please email [email protected] and one of our team will get back to you. We're committed to becoming more accessible and providing support if needed, please get in touch via email or phone if there are any parts of our process you would like assistance with (process found here meridianenergy.co.nz/careers), we’re more than happy to help.   

Advertising closes at 11:59pm on 26 March 2025 (please note this is subject to change)