Director of Engineering

About Auror

At Auror, we’re empowering the retail industry to tackle theft and Organised Retail Crime, a $150 Billion problem globally. It’s high volume crime that’s increasingly organised in nature and is putting people, retailers, and communities at risk every day.

Founded in New Zealand 11 years ago, we’re working with some of the best and largest retailers in the world across the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Auror is connecting people and intelligence to reduce crime. We’re using technology for good. 

In partnership with our leading retail partners, we need people with the passion, determination, and innovation required to overcome one of the world's largest problems. If you’re looking to make a difference with and for the people dedicated to stopping crime, for good, then we want you on our team.

About Auror Engineering

Collaboration is at the heart of the Engineering team at Auror. We believe that we can only build the very best software by working with each other, and seeking different perspectives to solve problems.

• We like to ask questions and make sure the work we're doing has the biggest impact it can
• We work closely with Product Management and Design to scope out the best solution
• We prioritise helping each other and giving great feedback on PR reviews
• We take responsibility for the quality of our software, consulting with fellow engineers and supporting teams
• We solve problems that make a real-world impact, and we take engineering seriously. We're a team that:
• Ship code to production constantly with a minimal defect rate, prioritising short feedback cycles over project plans and deadlines
• We continuously look for ways to improve our product and our tech, and make space to contribute to engineering initiatives across the team

Our architecture is cloud-native, which lets us focus on delivering business value to customers, not maintaining the plumbing.

Our stack is: React SPA and Typescript over a C# dotnet core, backends-for-frontends WebAPI, hosted in GCP and Azure. In GCP and Azure we use Containers for compute, SQL, No-SQL, Functions, Storage, Eventing, Generative AI, and Search.

The Role

[Note: We are open to candidates outside of Auckland]

We’re looking for a Director of Engineering at Auror. This role will report to our SVP Engineering and work closely with other key stakeholders - such as our Chief Product Officer, and other Directors in the Product Squad. You will have multiple Engineering Leads and Principal Engineers as direct reports, and will work with them to help their teams continuously improve our processes, tooling, and tech stack.

What impact will you have?

• Define and communicate our core technical practices and principles, and ensure we are aligned to Auror’s culture and guiding principles in the way we work.
• Support the Engineering team with access to learning opportunities and growth, partnering with People Experience (PX) to create a coaching culture and helping people progress in their careers.
• Prioritise engineering-led initiatives (technical debt, innovation, security) and partner with product to coordinate the engineering roadmap with the wider product roadmap.
• Partner with our SVP Engineering to set our technical strategy and roadmap and ensure alignment with company objectives and key results.
• Partner with our PX team to attract, recruit and retain the best talent, and be a strong advocate for the Auror team at external networking events.
• Engage with stakeholders around the company to ensure we are building the right product.

This role reports to Peter Goodman, SVP of Engineering

I’ve spent the majority of my career in product companies building impactful, secure, reliable software that scales. I’ve been a software engineer for a long time, a site reliability engineer, and a leader. I believe deeply in understanding how the code and systems we build behave when they run for our customers, after all that is when they are actually doing the job we intended them to do. In order to foster an environment where our people can do their best work I care that teams have a clarity of purpose and are empowered to solve the problems they encounter. I spend a lot of time evangelising blameless culture and the concepts of Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose. The team here at Auror have an incredible culture of collaboration and care deeply about the outcomes for their peers and our customers. It is because of this, above all other aspects of life at Auror, that I know we will continue to be successful in our mission. When I close the laptop I love to spend time with my two growing kids, playing guitar, and making the best Neapolitan pizza I can.

Requirements

About you

• Leadership: Experience scaling and managing diverse engineering teams - attracting, developing and retaining talent at all levels. Motivated to build and improve engineering culture. 
• Technical Aptitude:  An experienced background in software development, skilled at asking the right high level questions about software designs and technical risks. Ability to constructively review architectural designs and help senior engineers with career development.
• Strategic Thinking: Experience with defining and operationalising a multi-year tech strategy and roadmap.  
• Collaboration: Ability to work collaboratively with people at multiple levels across the Product Squad and the wider company.
• Execution: Strong decision making skills and ability to take ownership of complex engineering initiatives. Experience of successfully improving processes, tooling and tech stacks.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, in both 1-to-1 and 1-to-many settings. Ability to communicate easily with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Passion for integrating AI: Driven in the pursuit of AI tools and LLMs as force multipliers for your team, not just following trends, but thoughtfully applying these technologies to enhance engineering practices, streamline workflows and accelerate delivery.

We are looking for people who demonstrate a strong alignment to our Guiding Principles (you can find these on our Careers page).

Auror is committed to providing an inclusive and accessible application process to all candidates and we are actively working to improve diversity within the tech industry. We celebrate diversity and inclusiveness at Auror, regardless of (but not limited to) race, gender, sexual orientation, family status, religion, ethnicity, national origin, physical disability, veteran status, or age.

If you need adjustments to any part of our recruitment process because of accessibility reasons, please do not hesitate to let us know during the application process. We will work with you to identify adjustments that will allow you to perform at your best.

Benefits

• Competitive salary Range: Depending on level of experience of $180,000-$210,000 PL5

• Employee share scheme: You’ll own part of a company making a real difference!
• Flexibility: We are hard-working and outcome focused, but recognise there is more to life than work. We promote a healthy work/life blend.
• Shorter work weeks (at full pay): Everyone gets Friday afternoons off, so you can start your weekend early, and do more of whatever it is that makes you happy.
• Focus on mental and physical health: We understand how vital our health is and have policies to support your wellness, including: Wellness Days,  and up to $750NZD to put towards expert sessions every year.
• Nib Health Care Plan: Auror covers 100% of the cost of your individual health insurance plan. 
• Family-friendly: We offer comprehensive parental leave and benefits for primary and non-primary caregivers, including a baby bonus and meals delivered to your door.
• Personal growth: We support our team to participate in courses, conferences, or events that will help them develop their skills.
• Team love: We have regular team lunches and social events where most (if not all) activities are during work hours.

Next steps:

If you’re excited about our mission and you have the experience and a passion for this role, please hit “Apply”.

If you’re not sure that you tick all the boxes but feel you’re close to what we’re looking for, please apply anyway! We’re proud that Auror is a place where everyone can learn and grow so we’d love to hear from you.

You'll be asked to submit a cover letter as part of your application. While this is optional we do encourage it, as we find cover letters can tell a story that resumes alone often cannot. Our hiring team love to understand what attracted you to this role and why you are excited about the opportunity to join Auror.

Once you apply, you’ll hear from us to acknowledge your application. If you have questions about any of the above, or if you have any accessibility requirements, we’ll be able to help you from there.