Senior Backup Engineer

About Airways

Airways New Zealand manages airspace spanning 30 million square kilometers, offering vital services such as air traffic control, surveillance, communication, flight inspection, mapping, and airspace design. Collaborating closely with government, regulatory bodies, airlines, airports, and the general aviation community, Airways prioritizes safety and efficiency for pilots, passengers, and cargo. The organisation values Safety, Unity, Excellence, and Success.

Team Overview

The Technology Team oversees diverse technology areas including engineering design, software development, systems architecture and infrastructure, asset and installation management, technical training, workload planning, maintenance programming, project and logistics management.

The IT and Service Management (IT&SM) group drives organizational performance by delivering IT and digital services aligned with Airways’ strategic goals. Their scope covers workplace technology, business applications, digital engagement, document and information management, IT operations, and desktop support.

Role Summary

We are seeking a Senior Backup Engineer to join our growing IT&SM team at our Christchurch location on a permanent full-time basis. Reporting to the National IT Operations Manager, your primary responsibility will be to maintain the availability, recoverability, and stability of the organisation’s backup and data protection services.

You will collaborate closely with the Principal Backup Engineer, providing a secondary expert resource and deep platform knowledge across Airways' infrastructure.

Key Responsibilities

• Monitor and verify backup and replication services daily.
• Schedule and conduct recovery testing to validate against recovery objectives.
• Proactively troubleshoot issues and escalate when necessary.
• Maintain the overall health and stability of the backup environment.
• Plan, execute, and confirm recovery testing compliance with recovery point/time objectives.
• Assess backup, recovery, and retention needs for new services or infrastructure changes.
• Prepare and update system documentation, runbooks, and recovery procedures.
• Contribute backup and recovery design inputs for infrastructure projects and new services entering the environment.

Candidate Profile

Successful candidates will possess strong networking fundamentals to diagnose backup and replication traffic issues including routing, switching, VLANs, and firewall configurations. Independent complex issue troubleshooting is essential.

You will provide support across the backup service and participate in on-call rotations to ensure continuity.

Experience and Skills Required

• Minimum 5 years in enterprise infrastructure engineering.
• At least 3 years responsible for enterprise backup, replication, and disaster recovery across multiple infrastructure environments.
• Expertise with backup administration, troubleshooting, and recovery operations using tools such as Veeam or equivalent market-leading solutions.
• Experience managing backup and recovery for virtualized environments like VMware vSphere and Nutanix AHV.
• Proficiency in physical standalone workload backup and recovery using Bare Metal Restore techniques.
• Familiarity with enterprise backup systems, tape libraries, and storage platforms including HPE StoreOnce, Alletra, and Apollo.
• Knowledge of immutable, air-gapped, and offline backup designs to ensure recovery from ransomware and data corruption.
• Experience with Microsoft Windows Server OS and Active Directory services including application-consistent backup and service restoration.
• Understanding of Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 data protection, backup, and recovery services.
• PowerShell scripting skills for automation, validation, and reporting within backup operations.
• Strong foundation in ITIL processes focusing on incident, problem, and change management.
• Ability to apply cyber resilience principles to data protection such as immutability, retention, and recovery assurance.
• Understanding of IT infrastructure standards, data center operations, and enterprise architecture principles.
• Capability to communicate technical risks and recovery statuses effectively to non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven adaptability and resilience with a collaborative approach to delivering successful outcomes in a dynamic environment.

Preferred Qualifications and Experience

• Experience in regulated, safety-critical, or 24x7 operational environments.
• Tertiary qualifications or equivalent vendor certifications relevant to IT infrastructure.
• Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE) or similar backup solution certifications.
• Exposure to UNIX and Linux workload backup and recovery.
• Experience working with HPE Compute (DL ProLiant) hardware.
• Knowledge of both current and legacy applications within long-term infrastructure estates.
• Participation in project designs contributing data protection and recovery strategies.

Benefits and Additional Information

The company offers a competitive remuneration package including a strong base salary and an employer superannuation contribution up to 11% (terms and conditions apply). Benefits include five weeks of annual leave, ample learning and career development opportunities, and a hybrid work model offering flexible arrangements.

The hiring process requires candidates to be legally authorized to work in New Zealand and includes pre-employment checks such as background verification, drug and alcohol screening, and criminal record screening.

Airways is committed to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace, holding Rainbow Tick and Gender Tick accreditations, and welcomes applicants from all backgrounds to apply.

Application Deadline

Applications close on Tuesday, 8 September 2026.