Senior Network Design Engineer

About us:
Our people manage New Zealand's 30 million square kms of airspace, providing air traffic control, surveillance, communication, flight inspection, mapping, and airspace design services. We work with government, regulatory authorities, airlines, airports, and the general aviation community to ensure pilots, passengers and goods reach their destination - safely. At Airways, our values underpin all that we do. We value Safety, One Airways, Excellence and Success in all that we do.

Our organisation is made up of operational business groups that are supported by governance and corporate services functions. Our team members are located in offices, workshops, Air Traffic Control Towers and surveillance centres across Aotearoa.

To learn more about our people and organisational structure, check out www.airways.co.nz/about.

About the Team:
The Technology business unit is responsible for the effective delivery, management and services of all technology disciplines within the air navigation services environment – engineering design, software design and development, technology architecture and infrastructure, asset management, installation and maintenance, technical training, workload planning, maintenance program development, project management, and logistics support.

As a safety critical, high availability, distributed system; air traffic management system engineering is the top of the heap in terms of complexity. There is no down time, system must run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, even during system upgrades. 

This flows into the telecommunication network not being your standard critical communications network and is equally complex to ensure the services work as expected.

The Network Design team is responsible for the procedures to architect, design, and delivery of projects for our critical network infrastructure. This includes the responsibility for ensuring the technical knowledge is documented, maintained and accessible for the operations and support teams. Ensuring the ongoing stability and availability of services.

About the Role:
We are hiring are a permanent full-time Network Design Engineer to join us at our Christchurch based campus.

Our Network Design Engineers ensure the provision of safe air traffic systems by providing networking expertise in the design, installation, modification, and improvement of standards for equipment used by Airways and our overseas clients. 

You will be a key member of the team and provide specialist network design and technical leadership with a major focus on shifting network operations from manual, device-centric management to intent-driven, automated network services, leveraging network management platforms such as Nokia Network Services Platform (NSP).

Additionally, you will lead the development and design of scalable, resilient, automated network solutions that align business intent with network behaviour.

For a full list of tasks and responsibilities, please refer to the position description attached to the advert on our careers site.

About you:
We are looking for someone who will exhibit pride and ownership for the availability and reliability of the network to deliver the best network experience for our customers and assist with the mentoring and coaching of other engineers to support the evolution of network automation through intent-based networking.

For success (and to be considered) you’ll hold:

• A relevant tertiary qualification in a technology related discipline (diploma or degree level)
• A minimum of 5 years of experience in a network technical design or operational role, in a complex critical infrastructure environment
• A safety mindset with being able to effectively assess and communicate risks
• Proven technical skills using various vendor routing, switching platforms
• Expert knowledge of multicast across mixed vendor environments
• A passion for developing automation of network tasks and Intent Based Networking
• Proven high standard of clear design documentation
• Experience in security by design concepts
• A passion for excellence and attention to detail.

About Our Offering:
Airways is a great place to work, with an international reputation for innovation and success. You'll work with some of the most experienced, talented, and dedicated engineers and technicians in the industry.

We offer a competitive package inclusive of a solid base salary, five (5) weeks annual leave, enhanced parental leave offering, vast learning opportunities, continued professional development and career progression opportunities.

To Apply:
If you are eager to expand your career in a dynamic, fast-paced and safety focused business, please submit your application (CV and Cover Letter) via the Airways careers website or Seek.

Please note that you must be legally eligible to work in New Zealand to be considered.

This role will require the successful candidate to undergo pre-employment background checks including references, drug and alcohol screening, criminal conviction, and related checks.

Application closing date is Sunday, 10 May 2026.

At Airways, our people are at the heart of what we do to keep NZ skies safe. We are committed to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace where people feel they belong and can bring their whole self to work. We currently hold the Rainbow Tick and NQTick (neurodiversity) and are working towards Gender Tick. We make our recruitment decisions based on the best candidate for the job and therefore encourage applications from diverse candidates.

Position description Apply now

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