Senior DevOps Engineer (AI-Forward)

Location: New Zealand (Hybrid: In-office Tue, Thu, Fri)

Stack: AWS (EC2, RDS, ECS, Lambda), Terraform, PostgreSQL, Spring Boot

The Mission

At Emerge, we aren't just building a company; we’re building a movement. Our vision is to be New Zealand’s most ambitious challenger bank, flipping the current model to give every Kiwi access to a better financial future. We move fast, prioritise "Beautiful Simplicity," and treat our customers as real people with real stories, not just data points.

We are seeking a Senior DevOps Engineer who thrives on high-performance infrastructure and is "AI-Curious". At Emerge, AI isn't a feature—it’s our operating system. We need an engineer who will leverage AI-native tools to automate our dev pipeline and cut down PR cycle times.

Why Emerge is a Developer’s Dream

We don't just "plug in" third-party tools; we build the future from the ground up because we demand more than off-the-shelf solutions can provide.

• Ground-Up Infrastructure: We have built our own products from the ground up, including 2 native iOS Apps, 2 native Android Apps, 2 Web Apps, 4 CRMs, 3 dashboards, and over 17 backend services.

• Full Control: We’ve built real-time card authorisation flows, giving us full control over transaction approvals and declines to create customised controls.

• Core Innovation: We have successfully built integrations with blockchain ledgers and modular architectures that allow us to switch services without downstream issues.

• Internal AI Innovation: We have built AI into several parts of the company, most recently we have built an AI tool in our CRM that converts natural language into real-time data queries, empowering every team to interrogate our data directly.

• High-Impact Environment: You’ll be working on core financial infrastructure in a company that rewards leverage and impact over tenure.

What You’ll Tackle

• AWS Mastery: Own the day-to-day management and optimisation of our AWS infrastructure, including EC2, RDS PostgreSQL, ECS, S3, and IAM.

• Scaling & Strategy: Provide expert recommendations on scaling strategies and cost-effective architectures to support business growth.

• Observability: Design and maintain CloudWatch alarms, dashboards, and proactive monitoring for infrastructure and database metrics.

• CI/CD & IaC: Build and enhance CI/CD pipelines for Spring Boot (Kotlin/Java) applications and automate infrastructure using Terraform.

• Database Tuning: Integrate PostgreSQL-specific monitoring and tune RDS instances for high-performance workloads.

• Incident Response: Lead root-cause investigations during outages, correlating app logs and performance traces to minimise downtime.

• AI Integration: Propose and implement AI integrations to boost dev flow, such as building AI-first dev pipelines with guardrails.

Who You Are

• Experienced: You have 5+ years of hands-on AWS experience and a proven track record managing RDS PostgreSQL.

• AI-Native: You see AI as a teammate and force multiplier. You are ready to move from "Capable" (using AI for scripts) to "Transformative" (building an AI-first dev pipeline).

• First-Class Thinker: You live in "1st and 2nd place"—you don't just raise problems; you bring fixes or reasoned solutions.

• Grit & Ownership: You have the toughness to push through when things get hard and the "grit" to finish what you start.

• Clear Communicator: You communicate clearly in stand-ups and can explain complex technical decisions to both teammates and stakeholders.

The Emerge Way

• Default to Trust: Authority comes from trust earned through action, not titles or hierarchy.

• Energy Modes: We protect deep-work "Builder" time (Mon/Wed) and maximise "Facilitator" time for in-office collaboration (Tue/Thu/Fri).

• We All Sweep the Deck: No task is beneath us—if it helps the mission, we pitch in.

• Reward Leverage: We reward impact and outcomes over tenure. If you create massive leverage, you’ll be rewarded fast.

Qualifications & Stack

• Must-Have: Proficiency in Terraform, Docker, ECS, and AWS Code services; experience with Java/Kotlin CI/CD.

• Nice-to-Have: Experience with PCI Level 1 certification or finance products; familiarity with JVM tuning and connection pooling.