Engineering Manager - Koru

Trade Me Role Description

At Trade Me, we're about connecting Kiwi to create the life they want. Whether it's the big things like finding a home, a job, a car or growing their business, or the smaller things, like finding that right bedside table or parting ways with some old stuff. At Trade Me our vision is to be the place where Kiwi look first.

Koru is Trade Me's biggest platform transformation. We're rebuilding the core platform behind our 25-year-old site so every team can deliver value to customers faster. As more squads move onto Koru, you'll lead its scaling across Technology. You'll turn platform vision into practical delivery and build the onboarding, tooling, ways of working and operational model that help every engineering team succeed on Koru. This role can be based in Auckland or Wellington.

Here is what you can expect from this role:

• A team of Lead Software Engineers and Engineers to lead, inside Koru within our Platforms team

• The job of bringing every Trade Me squad onto Koru, working side by side with other Engineering Managers so each team's move to the new platform goes smoothly

• An ecosystem that keeps growing: you'll shape the environments, tooling and pipelines so they keep pace as more teams build on Koru

• A real say in how engineering gets done, from AI-assisted practices and workflows to testing, code reviews, ownership boundaries and support expectations

• An incident and operational model to mature as more teams, internal and with Thoughtworks, come on board, with reliability, resilience and observability front of mind

• Time on the tools, with at least 30% of your time spent on high-value or critical technical work

• Fast-moving, greenfield work full of unknowns, where you make the call and adjust as you go

What you will bring to our team:

• 5+ years of people leadership with engineering teams of 7+, including senior engineers, plus strong change leadership experience

• Deep engineering roots: 10+ years as a practitioner, with strong knowledge of architecture, software design and modern engineering practices

• Hands-on experience scaling platforms, tooling and engineering practices in fast-moving environments

• A front-row seat to how AI is changing engineering, having evolved ways of working to match, for example by automating architecture-alignment checks in code reviews

• A track record of bringing best practices to life across an engineering organisation

• Confidence making sound, data-informed calls in ambiguous situations, and the experience to hit the ground running

• Technical credibility that earns trust from highly technical engineers, and a knack for explaining complex ideas to any audience

You'll have the best time working at Trade Me, and this is why:

#AI and Tech: We live and breathe AI in our daily tasks. We value curiosity and an open mind towards new tech, offering dedicated AI skilling to help you grow and thrive in a fast-changing landscape.

#Flexibility: Flexibility means different things to different people and we support you to find what works, including a home office set up and utilities allowance. We value team connection and come together in person on Monday and at least one other day a week.

#Wellness: Being your best self means caring for your physical and mental wellbeing, we offer lots of resources to help you along the way.

#Leave: We support you with leave when you need it, including 5 days of wellness leave each year and 10 days of sick leave from day 1.

#Social: Nothing beats getting together to have some fun and celebrate our success. Join us in the office on payday for company paid lunches. Regular Friday drinks and nibbles, annual Trade Me company awards, celebrations and more.

#Learning: Whether it's on the job, formal training, or mentoring, you'll grow with us from Day 1. We're big on internal mobility and look to our own talent first for new opportunities.

We know some candidates can be reluctant to apply for roles if they feel they don't 'tick all the boxes'. If you're excited about this opportunity, we'd still really like to hear from you so please send us your resume and a short cover note outlining the “Why”.

Trade Me is an INZ accredited employer. We truly value diversity and embrace a flexible workplace where people are encouraged to achieve their potential.

Check out the job description for this role here.