Senior Software Engineer - Team Lead (Data Engineering)

About this role

As a Senior Software Engineer - Team Lead in the Data Engineering team, you’ll deliver the next phase of Vista’s AI programme.
Working closely with business stakeholders and the data engineering team, you’ll turn complex operational problems into clear requirements, practical solutions, and reliable AI-enabled systems. You’ll help connect fragmented systems and data to build a clearer view of Vista’s customer and business operations. This role combines discovery, solution design, AI orchestration, and hands-on engineering, with an emphasis on clearly understanding the problem before directing AI to help solve it.
Alongside your hands-on engineering responsibilities, you’ll also provide people leadership for the Data Engineering team, supporting engineers through regular one-to-ones, feedback, career development, performance conversations, and day-to-day coaching, helping to create a healthy, capable, and highly autonomous team.
Working closely with the programme’s technical and delivery leadership, who will be accountable for delivery priorities, timelines, and technical coordination, you’ll be accountable for team health, capability, career development, and people-management outcomes. You’ll help the team operate effectively through lightweight coordination, clear expectations, and high individual autonomy, without introducing unnecessary process or meetings.
This role is expected to be approximately 60% analysis and discovery, and 40% implementation.
Help us build the data and engineering foundations that allow Vista to make better decisions, redesign important workflows, and create valuable AI-enabled products and experiences.

What you’ll do
Work with stakeholders to understand business outcomes, operational pain points, workflows, and decisions that could be improved through better access to data and AI
Translate business needs into clear requirements, data points, metrics, source systems, and prioritised engineering work
Design and deliver data ingestion pipelines, services, integrations, and tooling using the patterns established by Vista’s data engineering team
Use AI-first engineering practices to orchestrate the design, development, testing, documentation, and operation of production systems
Build practical AI-enabled solutions, including copilots, agents, automation, and decision-support workflows.
Break ambiguous problems into clear, achievable increments that deliver measurable value
Run multiple streams of work in parallel while remaining self-directed and accountable for outcomes
Ensure data quality, security, access, auditability, observability, and responsible AI practices are built into each solution
Work closely with data engineering, product, support, security, and business teams to ensure solutions are useful, reusable, and scalable
Provide day-to-day people leadership for the Data Engineering team, including regular one-to-ones, coaching, feedback, career development, wellbeing support, and performance management
Build a healthy, inclusive, and accountable team environment that supports high autonomy and effective collaboration
Provide leadership visibility into team health, capacity, capability, and emerging people risks
Requirements
What you’ll bring with you
Strong software engineering fundamentals and experience delivering production systems
Experience with Python, TypeScript, APIs, integrations, data pipelines, or distributed systems
Strong experience using AI tools to design, generate, test, review, and operate software
Experience leading, mentoring, or coaching software engineers
Ability to build trust, provide clear feedback, and support meaningful career-development conversations
Ability to set clear expectations while enabling engineers to work with a high degree of autonomy
Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to articulate problems clearly and precisely
Strong analytical and problem-framing skills
Experience translating business needs into technical solutions and prioritised engineering work
Confidence working independently in ambiguous and fast-moving environments
Ability to manage several workstreams in parallel without requiring significant management overhead
Familiarity with relational databases, data modelling, cloud platforms, and data quality principles
Sound judgment around security, privacy, governance, and access control
A practical, outcome-focused approach to AI and emerging technologies
Experience with AI orchestration, agents, event-driven systems, analytics platforms, data engineering, or automated workflows would be valuable

For this particular role, we are currently only considering applicants with the right to live and work in New Zealand without the need for employer sponsorship.

About Vista
Vista is a world-leading company that makes software for the cinema industry. Started in Auckland, New Zealand, over 25 years ago, we now serve cinemas, film distributors, and moviegoers worldwide.
Our HQ is in the City Works Depot in Auckland. We have offices and subsidiary companies in Sydney, Los Angeles, London, Amsterdam, Cape Town, Shanghai, Mexico City, and Kuala Lumpur. We use the latest technologies and offer a fun, agile and collaborative environment. We continue to innovate and build our reputation as one of the best Kiwi tech companies to work for.

Shared Standards
Our Shared Standards act as a compass for how we work together and reflect the behaviours we value at Vista Group. The way in which each member of our crew embodies these Shared Standards is an indicator for performance and success, as it aligns with our vision and strategy.
One Crew • We're a diverse team, in different places and functions, and we're at our best when we connect, help and collaborate
Shine a Light • We communicate openly, we explain the why, and we ask when we don't understand. We don't leave people in the dark
Make it Happen • We make good things happen as people and as teams through our focus on delivery
Chase Great • We…