Head of Digital Product Engineering

The Role

Fisher & Paykel is one of New Zealand's best-known brands, a global company with a strong heritage and ambitious plans. Our New Zealand origins, curious nature and passion to develop luxury products designed around people are core elements that make us unique.

Driven by our brand values of being trusted, sustainably minded, innovative, generous and curious, as a team we take a collaborative approach where all ideas are heard and are united in our leading goal to be the world's most human-centred, #1 premium appliance brand.

This is an exciting opportunity to join Fisher & Paykel as our Head of Digital Product Engineering, leading the software engineering capability at the heart of our digital experience.

Based at our new Global HQ in Penrose, you'll be working in an environment designed around people, creativity and design, bringing our teams together to collaborate, challenge thinking and turn extraordinary ideas into reality.

Reporting to the General Manager, Digital, you'll lead, grow and develop a high-calibre team of 6 to 12 software engineers responsible for designing, shipping and operating the digital products that sit at the core of our AI-first business.

You'll own the technical foundation for our web experiences across multiple markets and regions, spanning both ecommerce and non-ecommerce technology. You'll ensure our digital platforms deliver a premium, scalable and stable experience that reflects the Fisher & Paykel and Haier brands.

This is a role that combines senior technical leadership with genuine people leadership. You'll set the standard for engineering practice across the team, balancing delivery pace with technical quality, operational reliability and technical risk.

You'll also play a critical role in shaping what an AI-first engineering practice looks like at Fisher & Paykel, from how our engineers use AI-native tools and agentic workflows, through to how we safely build and evaluate AI-enabled customer experiences.

Working closely with Product, Design, Data, Platform and IT leaders, you'll help turn digital ambition into valuable, production-grade software that is delivered predictably and safely.

This is where you come in...

You'll be an experienced software engineering leader with a track record of leading teams that deliver complex, production-grade digital products.

You'll bring:

• Significant experience leading, coaching and developing software engineers across multiple levels, with a passion for building high-performing teams and growing technical capability.
• Strong experience across the full software development lifecycle, from architecture and design through to coding, testing, release and operations.
• A demonstrated ability to deliver software predictably while balancing speed, quality, reliability and technical risk.
• Experience working with modern AI technologies, including LLMs, retrieval and evaluation, together with practical experience embedding AI-native tooling into engineering workflows.
• The technical credibility to make pragmatic decisions around architecture, reliability, observability, security and modern cloud-native platforms.
• Experience using engineering and delivery metrics to understand performance, identify systemic issues and support evidence-based decision making.
• The ability to build strong relationships across Product, Design, Data, Platform, IT and the wider business, translating technical complexity into clear choices and outcomes.
• Experience managing budgets, commercial trade-offs and third-party engineering or platform vendors.
• A tertiary qualification in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related discipline, or equivalent professional experience.

Most importantly, you'll be a leader who thinks like an owner, takes action fast and courageously challenges the status quo. You'll know when to get into the right level of detail, make decisive calls with the right information, and create an environment where people are encouraged to learn, experiment and perform at their best.

This is an opportunity for someone who is passionate about both technology and people, someone who can set a high technical bar while creating the culture, capability and conditions for engineers to do exceptional work.

What we offer

We can give you the rare opportunity to join a large, complex global organisation headquartered in New Zealand, where you'll have significant influence over the evolution of our digital technology capability and broad exposure across the business.

You'll work alongside talented people across Digital, Product, Design, Data and IT, with the opportunity to shape our AI-first engineering approach and the digital experiences of two globally recognised appliance brands.

Along with a competitive salary, flexible working, ongoing development and excellent growth and progression opportunities, as a valued member of our team you'll enjoy generous discounts on Fisher & Paykel and Haier products, life and disability insurance, discounted medical cover, access to our superannuation scheme, our leading Whānau/Family leave offering, our subsidised staff café, and free car parking when you're on-site.

All this, coupled with great leadership and backed by a world-leading heritage brand that is consistently ranked as one of New Zealand's most Trusted Brands, year after year.

This is a great time to join us on our journey.

Apply online today including your CV and a cover letter outlining your experience leading software engineering teams, your approach to AI-first engineering, and what you could bring to Fisher & Paykel's digital transformation.

From the grandest of ideas to the smallest of details, every day we're turning our passion into performance and improving life through good design.

Here at Fisher & Paykel we're passionate about our customers and we care about the details. It's this passion that inspires us towards reaching our goal, to become the most human-centred appliance brand in the world.

#LI-CU1 #LI-Hybrid

Fisher & Paykel is an Equal Opportunity Employer.  Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, or other characteristics protected by law.