Senior AI Engineer - Lead

Company overview

The Warehouse Group is one of New Zealand’s best-known retail organisations, serving communities across the country through The Warehouse, Warehouse Stationery, and Noel Leeming. The business is focused on becoming more brand-led and customer-centric, with a strong emphasis on agility, collaboration, and placing the right people in the right roles.

Its technology environment is broad and supports the full group operation, including digital channels, warehouse systems, order management, and other core platforms. This is a workplace for people who want to work on meaningful technology that has real business impact.

About the role

This is a senior AI engineering leadership position with a strong hands-on component. The role is responsible for helping shape how AI solutions are designed, developed, and delivered across the organisation.

As the Data & AI capability continues to expand, you will lead technical delivery for AI initiatives, provide architectural direction, mentor newer engineers, and help ensure ideas can move smoothly from prototype into production. The role sits within the Data & AI function and reports to the Group Chief Data & AI Officer.

You will work alongside AI Engineers, Data Engineers, Architecture, Security, and business stakeholders to create AI solutions that are practical, secure, and built to scale. This role also involves setting engineering expectations, supporting the graduate AI capability, and acting as a trusted technical lead.

What you will do

• Provide technical direction and architectural support for AI work led by the graduate capability team.
• Lead the design of AI solutions, including LLM applications, retrieval-augmented generation patterns, and agent-based workflows.
• Review and sign off on code, pipelines, and solution designs with attention to quality, security, scalability, and long-term supportability.
• Help move AI solutions from proof-of-concept into production-ready environments.
• Coach and mentor Graduate AI Engineers and Data Engineers to strengthen capability and engineering discipline.
• Partner with Enterprise IT, Architecture, and Security teams to support deployment into production.
• Contribute directly to complex build work where a hands-on approach is needed.
• Define and improve AI engineering standards, reusable patterns, and best practices across the team.
• Serve as an escalation contact for challenging engineering issues.
• Keep up with new AI developments and identify realistic opportunities to adopt them.

What you bring

You should be passionate about creating high-quality AI solutions that are secure, scalable, and fit for purpose. The role suits someone who is comfortable working deeply in the technical details while also leading others and guiding delivery.

• Substantial experience in software engineering and applied AI development.
• Strong Python skills and familiarity with modern AI application frameworks.
• Demonstrated success taking AI or data-led solutions into production.
• Sound knowledge of cloud platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP.
• Experience building APIs, data pipelines, and system integration approaches.
• Strong engineering habits around testing, code review, documentation, and maintainable design.
• Experience mentoring or supporting early-career engineers.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• A collaborative approach and the ability to work with both technical and non-technical teams.
• A pragmatic, curious, and improvement-focused mindset.

Nice-to-have experience

• Exposure to LLM platforms and designs, including RAG, agent workflows, and evaluation frameworks.
• Experience with MLOps or operational practices for AI systems.
• Understanding of enterprise security, identity, and data governance requirements.
• Experience working in fast-paced, iterative delivery environments.

What you can expect

In return, you will gain access to interesting technology, meaningful projects, and experienced colleagues within the Data & AI community. The organisation is intentional about hiring the right people so the team can deliver real value for the business and its customers.

You will also be part of a broader mission to make sustainable living easy and affordable for everyone.

Additional information

This role is based in Auckland, New Zealand, and is an onsite full-time position.