Contract Lead Engineer (Java, Real-Time Streaming, AWS)

A bit about us For over 17 years, ClearPoint has helped organisations succeed in a continually changing digital landscape. We are a trusted technology partner combining digital design, software engineering, data and insights, cloud and platforms, and consulting services to help organisations adapt to change. We pride ourselves on forming transformational collaborative partnerships that maximise value, deliver results and make a lasting impact through great outcomes and capability uplift. Through innovative thinking, we strive to make a difference for ourselves, our teams, our clients and our community across New Zealand and Australia. The ClearPoint culture We’re proud of the collaborative and inclusive culture we’ve fostered at ClearPoint by ensuring we all live and breathe our values: - Respect and Care for People - Act with Integrity - Earn and Nurture Trust Our diverse team enables us to better understand and serve our clients, attract the best talent and innovate successfully. So, from the moment you step through our doors, you’ll feel welcome and supported to do the best work you can. Our head office in Auckland is a modern, functional space overlooking the Viaduct, and just a 5 minute walk from Britomart’s central transport hub. We’ve also got access to co-working spaces across New Zealand and Australia, to cater to some of our team and clients in different regions. The role We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Engineer (contract) to help build and evolve a large-scale, real-time data streaming platform for one of ClearPoint’s clients. This role is hands-on, technically challenging, and ideal for engineers who enjoy solving ambiguous problems, exploring new approaches, and owning end-to-end delivery. You will design and develop high-throughput streaming solutions using Java, with opportunities to work with Go, AWS-native streaming technologies, and modern infrastructure tooling including Terraform and Kubernetes. This role requires individuals who thrive in ambiguity, enjoy building solutions from the ground up, and can take ownership of the end-to-end delivery of data pipelines and platform solutions. Immediate availability and Auckland-based candidates are preferred. We are ideally looking at individuals with immediate availability, and based in New Zealand. The experience we’re looking for : Essential ● Strong hands-on Java experience – required for building and optimising real-time streaming pipelines. ● Solid SQL experience, ideally with exposure to enterprise-grade databases (MSSQL preferred). ● Experience with real-time / near-real-time streaming (Kafka, MSK, Flink, Kinesis, or similar). Infrastructure as Code experience with Terraform. ● 5–7+ years of experience in software engineering or data platform development. ● Comfort operating in ambiguous environments, proactively exploring problems and proposing solutions. Highly Beneficial ● Experience with Apache Flink or other distributed stream processing frameworks. ● Familiarity with AWS cloud services, especially DynamoDB, MSK/Kafka, CloudWatch, or Kinesis. ● Exposure to Go. ● Experience with CDC (Change Data Capture) patterns or tools. ● Exposure to modern distributed SQL engines like Apache Doris (or similar). ● Experience with Kubernetes. What you’ll be doing : ● Lead and contribute to the design and build of large-scale real-time streaming pipelines. ● Develop streaming applications that ingest data from MSSQL using CDC, apply business logic, and push to multiple downstream systems such as DynamoDB, Kafka, and other AWS services. ● Work with AWS Managed Flink, Kafka/MSK, and AWS-native data services. Build scalable infrastructure using Terraform and modern cloud patterns. ● Explore and experiment with new engineering approaches to solve vague or undefined problems. ● Contribute to improving the internal platform, including opportunities to work with Go for Kubernetes-style control plane tooling. ● Collaborate with senior engineers and stakeholders, and drive technical decisions across the project. ● Help shape best practices around streaming, reliability, observability, and performance. What’s next? Sound like the opportunity you’ve been looking for? Please apply and one of our Recruitment & Resourcing team will be in touch for a confidential chat! You must be eligible to work in New Zealand to be considered for this application.