Ai Platform Engineer

**General information**:

- Location
- Auckland, Wellington
- Expertise
- Technology
- Job Level
- Experienced
- Employment Type
- Permanent full-time
- Close Date
- 30-Sep-2025
- Ref #
- 62175

**Description & Requirements**:
**About the job**:
**Ko wai mātou? - About us**
- As New Zealand's largest telecommunications and digital services company, Spark’s purpose is to help all of New Zealand win big in a digital world. We provide mobile, broadband, and digital services to millions of New Zealanders and thousands of New Zealand businesses.
- We operate in an exciting and constantly evolving industry, where the pace of change brings new and unique challenges every day, so we operate using Agile ways of working to allow us to meet the fast-changing needs of our customers. Agile replaces the traditional hierarchical organisational structure to produce a transparent, collaborative environment with highly productive teams who are empowered to deliver better outcomes for our customers, communities, and all of New Zealand.

**Mō tēnei tūranga mahi - About the Role**
- We’re seeking a highly skilled **Platform Engineer** with a strong background in **Azure**, **Infrastructure as Code**, **Kubernetes**, and **DevOps** practices to join our **AI Platform** **Engineering** chapter. In this role, you will help design, build, and operate the core platform that powers AI and data workloads. You will work closely with architects, AI engineers and data scientists to provide a robust, scalable, and secure platform for both experimentation and production workloads.

**Ngā mahi o ia rā - Daily tasks**
- Design, deploy, and maintain infrastructure using **Terraform** on **Microsoft Azure**:

- Manage and operate **Kubernetes** clusters (AKS) to support scalable AI workloads
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines and automation workflows using DevOps best practices
- Enable and support platform capabilities such as networking, observability, secrets management, identity integration, and cost optimisation
- Ensure compliance with security, governance, and operational standards
- Troubleshoot infrastructure issues and improve reliability, performance, and scalability of platform components

**Tō wheako
- your experience**
- 4+ years of experience in a platform, DevOps, or cloud engineering role
- Strong expertise with **Microsoft Azure**, including services like AKS and API Management
- Proficiency with **Terraform** and Infrastructure as Code practices
- Deep understanding of **Kubernetes**:

- Experience with **CI/CD** tools such as GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, or similar
- Strong scripting and automation skills (e.g., Bash, PowerShell, Python)
- Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Azure Monitor)
- Solid understanding of network security, RBAC, identity integration (e.g., Entra ID)

**Preferred Qualifications**
- Familiarity with data platforms (e.g., Snowflake)
- Experience with Azure Cognitive Services (e.g., AI Foundry, AI Search)
- Experience supporting **AI/ML** platforms, model training pipelines, or MLOps tools (e.g., Azure Machine Learning)
- Exposure to container security and policy tools (e.g., OPA/Gatekeeper, Kyverno)
- Azure certifications (e.g., AZ-104, AZ-305, AZ-400)

**He aha te take e uru ai koe ki a mātou - So, why choose us?**

**Te Kanorau me te Whakawhāiti mai** - **Diversity and Inclusion**
- At Spark, we are constantly looking for ways to build a more inclusive culture. Our vision is for diversity and inclusion to be “how things are done at Spark”, embedded into our day-to-day activities, standards, and business practices. We want you to feel totally comfortable bringing your whole self to work regardless of your gender, ethnicity, orientation, age, or ability.

**Toitū - Sustainability**
- Sustainability is a key focus for us. We are dedicated to supporting Aotearoa New Zealand’s recovery and economic transformation. The principle of equity is at the very heart of our approach, and we remain committed to working in partnership to make a positive contribution to digital equity in line with our focus on Diversity and Inclusion.

**Ō tatou painga - our Benefits**
- Our people matter and we make sure we look after them. As a valued employee of Spark, we’ve got our people covered with a range of leading benefits including:

- **Wellbeing** - Comprehensive medical insurance, life and income protection. Access to wellbeing coaches, EAP and in-house Specialist Clinical support through our leading Mahi Tahi Wellness programme.
- **Hybrid ways of working**- for most teams at Spark this means being in the office for 4 days a week, with 1 day being flexible.
- **Leave** - in addition to four weeks annual leave, we offer purchased leave, enhanced parental leave payments & support, and study leave.
- **Spark Credit** - We provide permanent employees with $120 monthly Spark credit to use on any of our amazing products.
- **Spark Share scheme** - periodically we offer the o