Senior Software Engineer

Southern Cross is guided by purpose, powered by people and technology. We exist to help our members live well for longer.

We serve almost one million members across Aotearoa New Zealand – which means the work we do carries real scale, real responsibility, and a genuine opportunity to improve health outcomes for our nation.

As we grow to be a more proactive partner in our members’ health, we’re building something new: a digital health and wellbeing experience designed to help members build healthier habits.

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to be one of the founding engineers in a brand-new squad – someone who enjoys building things from the ground up, and then owning them for the long run.

About the role

This is a new squad, and you’ll be one of its first engineers. The foundations are being laid, and from here the focus shifts to building on top of them – shipping features, evolving the platform and growing the product as more members start using it.

Your sweet spot is the back end: the services, APIs and integrations that connect our product with the platforms around it. You’ll also own the Azure infrastructure the squad builds on – maintaining it, evolving it and adding to it as the product grows – with support from our Platform team rather than handing it over the fence.

We work in a product operating model, so what you build, you own. Tested code is part of “done”, releases are small and frequent, and you keep an eye on how things are running once they’re in members’ hands. You’ll work closely with the Squad Lead, Lead Engineer and Principal Engineer, and be part of a wider engineering community that shares what’s working and keeps improving how we build.

What you’ll do

• Design, build and maintain back-end services, APIs and integrations that are secure, testable and maintainable

• Own and evolve the squad’s Azure infrastructure using infrastructure as code

• Build and look after CI/CD pipelines that make releases safe, frequent and automated

• Break work into small, testable increments and help shape user stories with clear acceptance criteria

• Write tests as part of the job – unit, contract, API and component – so quality is built in, not bolted on

• Monitor how things run in production, investigate issues and lead on fixing them properly

• Surface technical debt, risks and trade-offs early, and propose pragmatic ways forward

• Take part in peer reviews, pairing and knowledge sharing that lift the whole squad’s capability

• Use AI tools thoughtfully to work smarter, and share what you learn with the team

What you’ll bring

We’re after someone who’s comfortable being early in the journey – happy to roll up their sleeves, make sensible calls with incomplete information, and help set the standard for the engineers who join after them.

• Solid experience building and running enterprise applications in cloud or hybrid environments

• Strong back-end and integration capability – full stack backgrounds are welcome, as long as the back end is where you’re strongest

• Hands-on experience with Azure and infrastructure as code, and comfort owning the infrastructure your services run on

• Proficiency across tools like .NET/.NET Core, Node.js, JavaScript/TypeScript, Git, Azure DevOps, Docker, Kubernetes and GitOps

• Practical CI/CD experience – automated builds, reproducible artefacts and reliable release processes

• Robust testing habits across unit, contract, API and component tests, with a practical approach to end-to-end

• A solid grasp of secure coding and application security principles

• Experience maintaining and improving products over time, not just delivering projects

• Working knowledge of Agile and incremental delivery

• Clear communication, especially when explaining options and trade-offs

Why join us

We’re investing – in people, in technology, and in the mission. At a time when the market is hesitant, we’re continuing to strengthen our foundations and build new capabilities. This is a genuine build role: a new product, a new squad, and the chance to shape how it’s engineered from day one.

We’re building something worth joining. Our teams are growing, our employer brand is gaining real traction in market, and the way we show up for our members and each other is being noticed. This momentum has also been reflected externally – in 2026, Southern Cross placed 8th in the Kantar Corporate Reputation Index and 5th in New Zealand for Trust.

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

Southern Cross employee benefits include:

• Five days of wellbeing leave per year

• Health insurance for you and your immediate whānau

• Life insurance cover and discounts on pet and travel insurance

• Extra parental leave benefits and financial wellbeing support

• Participation in our workplace wellbeing programme

• The option to purchase flexi leave for study, volunteering, or supporting your whānau

• An annual volunteer day to contribute to a cause with your team

This is a permanent, Auckland-based role. While we appreciate interest from candidates in other locations, we’re not able to consider remote options at this stage. If this sounds like the kind of work you want to help shape, we’d love to hear from you. Have questions? Check out our FAQs for help with the application and recruitment process.