Lead Engineer - Relocation to Auckland, New Zealand with Halter

About Halter

Halter is dedicated to empowering farmers and graziers to run highly productive and environmentally sustainable operations. Our innovative technology allows farmers to manage livestock such as cattle without traditional methods like quad bikes, dogs, or fences, instead using advanced systems that gently guide herds at their own pace. This revolutionary approach is transforming the farming industry and improving lives across the sector. Backed by top-tier investors, Halter combines hardware, software, and AI to deliver smart farm management solutions.

Role Overview

We are seeking Lead Engineers who excel at solving complex technical challenges and setting high standards across the development lifecycle. You will play a crucial role in tackling difficult design problems, producing high-quality, maintainable code, and elevating the skills of engineers around you. Whether your expertise is in frontend, backend, full stack, or platform engineering, your work will be essential in creating robust systems that support our unique agricultural environment with AI-enhanced capabilities.

Key Challenges

• Aggregating and interpreting data from thousands of connected devices to deliver clear, actionable decisions for farmers in real time.
• Precisely modeling physical elements of farms such as animals, pastures, and terrain to inform immediate responses.
• Developing reliable mobile and web applications that perform effectively in challenging outdoor conditions.
• Designing scalable platforms and pipelines that keep pace with rapid expansion without compromising stability.
• Engineering solutions that overcome hardware limitations, unreliable rural connectivity, and physical world complexities while maintaining rapid development cycles.

Duties and Expectations

• Lead the resolution of challenging engineering problems and deliver impactful software solutions.
• Make critical architectural decisions and demonstrate them through high-quality code.
• Champion best practices in software craftsmanship including clean, observable, and maintainable code.
• Mentor peers via thoughtful design discussions, code reviews, and open knowledge sharing.
• Drive the engineering team's pace and product quality standards.
• Enhance our testing methodologies, continuous integration and deployment workflows, and infrastructure patterns.
• Take ownership of service reliability and performance, participating in on-call rotations.
• Engage with farm environments directly to deepen domain knowledge.

Preferred Qualifications and Attributes

• Proven experience with complex production systems and the resilience developed from it.
• Ability to remain calm under pressure, collaborate effectively, and inspire a team through adversity.
• A product-focused mindset emphasizing user experience along with engineering excellence.
• Proficiency in leveraging AI tools to improve team productivity and focus on complex problems.
• A history of growing engineers through collaboration rather than traditional management.
• Comfort in dynamic, fast-evolving environments that prioritize adaptability over perfection.
• Experience working with cloud platforms, with AWS considered advantageous.
• A formal degree in software engineering or equivalent is beneficial but not mandatory.

Technical Focus Areas

• Frontend/Mobile: Deep understanding of user experience, expertise in frameworks like React and React Native, and a focus on performance in real device contexts.
• Backend: Strong skills in REST API design, distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and both relational and non-relational databases. Experience with Node.js, Kotlin, Go, or interfacing with hardware/IoT is a plus.
• Full Stack: Comprehensive skills across frontend, backend, web, and mobile platforms.
• Platform: Passion for building internal tools that accelerate company-wide productivity, including AI tooling. Extensive experience with AWS, Terraform, CI/CD, observability, and on-call systems.

Benefits and Culture

• Enjoy complimentary daily snacks and beverages to keep energized.
• Access to health support through a partnership with Southern Cross Health Insurance.
• Generous parental leave policies including six months paid leave for primary caregivers and four weeks for secondary caregivers, plus other family-focused benefits.
• A $1,000 annual personal development fund to support continuous learning and growth.
• Wellness leave and unlimited paid annual leave for work-life balance.
• A competitive total compensation package combining salary, benefits, and employee stock ownership plan.

Work Environment

Halter maintains an "office first" culture, emphasizing the value of in-person collaboration for fostering growth, feedback, and innovation. Although the default expectation is working from the Auckland office, flexibility is offered as needed through a high-trust culture. Employees appreciate the vibrant atmosphere that boosts learning and productivity compared to fully remote or hybrid setups.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are devoted to building a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone can bring their true selves to work and achieve excellence. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds, especially underrepresented groups, to apply even if they do not check every box in the job description.

Application

If this opportunity aligns with your skills and passion, please submit a cover letter describing your enthusiasm for this role and Halter, along with your CV. We look forward to engaging with promising candidates.