TL;DR (too long; didn't read): Are you an expert technical leader ready to own, define, and scale the Engineering function for a high-impact wellbeing technology startup?

Join Komodo and become the Thought Partner to our Co-founder/CPO, as well as the strategic technical voice responsible for translating our recent fundraise into product maturity and global growth. If you thrive on deep technical problem-solving, enjoy building and mentoring teams, and want your architectural decisions to directly shape a mission-driven company, this is your opportunity to own and lead the entire technical trajectory.

Komodo is helping schools across the world lead with wellbeing through insight, education, and a platform built to scale.

Why should you join us?
You’ll work on purposeful problems that matter, alongside a global and growing team who care deeply about impact, culture, and doing good work with good people. Your contribution won’t just move the needle, it’ll shape the whole dial.

At a glance

• Role title: Lead Software Engineer

• ️ Role level: Senior Manager (M2) & Principal (E4)

• Reports to: Chief Product Officer

• Start date: ASAP

• Location: Christchurch, NZ

• Hours: Full-time, permanent

• Salary: Depending on experience

Why This Role Exists

This is a newly created, critical role that marks a significant investment in Komodo's future.

Having recently closed our latest fundraising round, we are at an inflection point where we want to deploy capital strategically to accelerate our product's maturity and scale.

This hire fills a crucial gap: a dedicated, senior technical leader within the business. You will be the proven expert responsible for establishing the technical vision and engineering excellence needed to take our platform to the next level. Your unique contribution will be to translate our growth ambitions into a scalable, high-quality technical roadmap, ensuring engineering is a strategic, value-creation function for the business.

Your success directly influences our ability to grow our impact for the schools we currently serve and the many more we plan to reach.

What You'll Own

This role requires a deep technical expert ready to shape our technology and team. You will have full ownership of the Engineering function; the team and its impact.

• Thought Partner to our Co-founder & CPO: Work collaboratively with our Chief Product Officer to help curate our roadmap and build ambitious, value-adding features that customers love.

• Strategic Technical Ownership: Serve as the company-wide expert in engineering, setting standards and shaping the technical strategy for our platform and infrastructure.

• Engineering Culture and Momentum: Responsible for building, fostering, and driving momentum through an engaging engineering culture.

• System Architecture and Quality: Own the overall system architecture, ensuring high quality, performance, and long-term stability across all engineering outputs. You will be responsible for continuous improvement and raising the bar for the entire technical function.

• People Leadership and Management: Take ownership of the day-to-day management of the Engineering Team, as well as more strategic people leadership through 1:1s, feedback cycles, and annual performance reviews.

• Goal Execution and Delivery: Lead the execution of engineering key results as part of our company quarterly goals.

• High-Stakes Problem Solving: Lead the resolution of ambiguous, cross-cutting, and high-stakes technical problems that require deep insight and long-term thinking.

• Cross-Functional Strategy: Provide an expert voice from an engineering perspective in strategy-level conversations with the Leadership Team.

• Roadmap and Process Improvement: Define and refine engineering practices, tools, and processes, ensuring reliable execution and high-quality delivery aligned with company goals.

What Success Looks Like

We measure success by meaningful, observable changes to the role you're already doing. Here's the impact we'd expect you to have in your first three to six months:

• Engineering Clarity: You have completed a robust technical audit and established the critical priorities, risks, and a clearly articulated 12-month technical roadmap for the Leadership Team.

• Process Maturity: You have implemented and socialised a standardised engineering practice, including coding standards, deployment rhythms, and quality control, leading to a measurable uplift in the stability and predictability of delivery.

• Team Development: Your two direct reports are receiving consistent, high-quality coaching, and you have documented clear development pathways for both individuals, ensuring they feel supported, challenged, and know their next steps for growth. Build the Engineering team over time, identifying great talent and culture fits that elevate us.

• Cross-Functional Trust: You have successfully integrated as the Engineering expert in leadership discussions, translating complex technical insights into clear, strategic narratives that inform product and business decisions.

• Build Momentum: You have built a sense of proactive momentum within the engineering team, leading the execution of key quarterly results on time and to a high standard, while fostering an engaged and open engineering culture.

• Location and Collaboration: This is a full-time, permanent role based in our Christchurch, NZ office. We are an office-first team with a strong culture of in-person collaboration.

• Responsible Autonomy: We trust our team to manage their time responsibly and offer flexibility. You will have the autonomy to decide how you get the work done, provided the needs of our customers and the wellbeing of our teammates are always at the forefront.

• Learning and Candour: We have a strong culture of continuous improvement and encourage giving and receiving feedback in a considerate way. Proactiveness is a necessity.

How to Apply