Senior / Lead AI Developer

Salary: Hands-on lead role delivering production-ready AI

The company:

Our client is an established New Zealand business investing in how AI can be used practically across its organisation. They’re moving beyond experimentation and building AI capability that can be integrated into real products, systems and business workflows.

Based in Christchurch, you’ll work across architecture, development, data, DevOps and business teams to help turn emerging AI technology into solutions that can be used at scale.

Why this role?

This is a hands-on AI development role with the opportunity to take the technical lead across the delivery of a growing portfolio of AI initiatives.

Around 70% of the position is focused on building. You’ll develop AI-enabled applications, integrations, APIs and reusable components, while also helping other developers adopt effective AI development practices.

This isn’t an enterprise architecture or people management position, although you will be required to mentor other developers. You’ll work within an agreed architectural direction, taking responsibility for turning those designs into secure, maintainable and production-ready solutions.

What you'll be doing

• Building AI-enabled applications and services that solve practical business problems
• Developing APIs, integrations and reusable components that connect AI with existing platforms
• Creating Model Context Protocol (MCP) services to securely expose enterprise capabilities and data
• Developing orchestration services and other components that enable AI applications to interact with existing systems
• Integrating AI functionality into new and existing products and workflows
• Taking a senior technical role across multiple AI development initiatives
• Helping developers adopt effective AI development tools and approaches
• Making sure solutions are properly tested, documented, reviewed and ready for production
• Working closely with Architecture, Data, BI and DevOps teams
• Identifying technical risks and dependencies early and helping keep delivery moving

What we're looking for

We’re looking for a strong Senior .Net Software Developer who has moved beyond simply experimenting with AI and has experience applying it to real world solutions.

You’ll ideally bring:

• Strong hands-on C#, .Net software development experience across modern application environments
• Practical experience working with LLMs, AI APIs, orchestration frameworks or AI integration patterns
• Experience developing APIs, integration services and reusable software components
• Cloud-native development experience, ideally within Azure
• An understanding of MCP and modern AI integration approaches would be advantageous
• A solid understanding of the software development lifecycle, including estimation, testing, code review, documentation and deployment
• Experience delivering within Agile environments
• The technical credibility to guide other developers without needing formal people management responsibility
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to navigate a rapidly evolving technology landscape
• The ability to communicate technical concepts clearly and work across different technical disciplines

Why you'll want this

This is an opportunity to work on real-world AI implementation, rather than AI as a POC.

You’ll spend the majority of your time building, while having enough technical leadership responsibility to influence how AI development is delivered across the business.

There’s also some genuinely interesting technical work ahead, particularly around MCP, AI orchestration, APIs, Azure and enterprise data integration.

If you’re an experienced Senior Developer who has been building with AI and wants to take a lead role in getting those solutions into production, this is a chance to do exactly that.

Please apply via the link with your updated CV, or reach out to Rachael Tobeck for a confidential chat.

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