Principal Engineer - Cards APIs

About Us

At Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), we go beyond traditional banking by working in an agile, vibrant atmosphere that fosters innovation with the promise: "If you can imagine a better future, let's find a way." We prioritize wellbeing, offer flexible schedules, and provide generous leave options. Growth, continuous learning, and career advancement are encouraged—no two days are identical.

Role Overview

We have an opening for a Principal Engineer within our Cards & Merchants team to lead the technical strategy for our API and integration landscape, driving improvements in resilience, reliability, and customer experience over the long term.

Key Responsibilities

• Command technical decision-making for the API ecosystem by leading architecture discussions, weighing integration trade-offs, and steering teams to deliver scalable, standards-aligned, reusable API solutions.
• Champion API quality and risk mitigation by reviewing API contracts, specifications, and event schemas focused on reliability, security, and testability. Identify systemic risks and embed "quality by design" throughout enterprise interfaces.
• Mentor and guide API engineers at various levels on API design, integration patterns, and interface standards, providing constructive feedback and fostering technical growth.
• Address complex technical challenges by heading root cause analyses and promoting structured problem-solving approaches to deliver scalable, enterprise-grade solutions.
• Collaborate extensively across BNZ with platform owners, architecture, product teams, engineering, and leadership to align API priorities and ensure integration designs follow enterprise architecture standards and strategic roadmaps.

Team Culture

BNZ embraces a culture of collaboration, transparent communication, continuous improvement, and strong ownership of customer experience. We're dedicated to knowledge sharing, curiosity, and ongoing learning.

Opportunity Highlights

This role offers a chance to elevate API capabilities across Cards & Merchants by shaping reusable, standardized APIs and dependable integration infrastructure, influencing a vital, high-impact program spanning multiple domains with significant momentum.

Challenges

The position requires balancing complex interconnected systems, fostering standardization and order in a rapidly expanding API environment while simultaneously supporting live deployments.

Technical Requirements

• Proven expertise designing and implementing APIs and enterprise integration, ideally within banking or financial services.
• Extensive practical experience with Java and Spring Boot/Spring frameworks for building enterprise-grade APIs and integration services.
• Familiarity with RESTful API design including contracts, specifications, payload mapping, authentication, error handling, and securing APIs through Kong (REST, JWT). A thorough grasp of gateway-based integration is essential.
• Experience with build tools like Gradle, containerization using Docker, and deployments targeting Openshift and Kubernetes (EKS).
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines employing Bitbucket (source control), Jenkins (build), and Spinnaker (deployment).
• Handling secrets securely with HashiCorp Vault for managing API keys and sensitive credentials.
• Messaging and event-driven integrations utilizing IBM MQ (JSON messages) and/or Kafka, plus data persistence with PostgreSQL (Aurora).
• Test automation expertise using JUnit, REST Assured, and TestNG for comprehensive unit and API integration testing, with validation through Kong.
• Competency in modern Java IDE environments.
• Beneficial understanding of cards and merchant data flows.

Personal Attributes

• Strategic thinking with the ability to envisage and create a long-term, reusable API ecosystem, understanding integration impact on business outcomes.
• Technical mastery coupled with curiosity, acting as a steward of high engineering standards and culture.
• Strong analytical skills adept at navigating ambiguous, systemic integration issues using structured problem-solving.
• A risk-conscious mindset focused on quality, security, and reliability in all aspects of API and integration design.
• Leadership qualities including mentorship, providing feedback, and fostering an inclusive, growth-oriented environment.
• Exceptional communication skills to effectively translate technical strategies to both technical and non-technical stakeholders across complex domains.
• A strong sense of responsibility and accountability for driving API and integration initiatives forward through obstacles.

Additional Information

Applications close on Friday 16 October 2026.

BNZ is a bold, forward-thinking organization committed to creating an exceptional workplace while helping New Zealanders ‘Find their way’. If this sounds like the right challenge for you, we encourage you to apply.