Halter enables farmers to grow and graze more grass through the use of virtual fencing. Every farm is deployed with communication infrastructure, a collar for each animal, and is paired with a mobile application. The result is tens of hours of labour saving per week, improved animal welfare, and increased productivity and sustainability of the land.

 

To continue to deliver on this mission the software platform team is looking for an experienced cloud engineer to help migrate some of our systems onto self-managed open-source alternatives.

 

Currently hosted on AWS we are exploring working through breaking our tight dependency on their managed services to enable greater flexibility in configuration and deployment as we scale globally. This will see us adopt Kubernetes into our technical stack. Unlike most Kubernetes migrations, however, this will require an intimate understanding of the systems involved and the backend code given the usage and implementation details of each service. This requires a cloud engineer with a strong coding background who isn’t scared to go deep on the domain they are working in to get the best result.

 

As part of this you will work with a small but deeply experienced team with a strong mindset of IaC, a love for autonomy, and a small number of stakeholders, all of which ensure we are able to make decisions fast. You will operate across the entire tech stack working with a variety of teams in tight collaboration to ensure teams both understand are able to support the changes being made.

 

Looking beyond this immediate migration, we will continue to explore opportunities that give us greater flexibility in configuration, deployment and cost as we continue to expand our product across more regions globally - all of which will require someone of the same ambition and skillset as we grow.

 

In doing the above successfully you’ll help develop technology that farmers rely on daily to monitor their pasture and protect their livestock, directly impacting farming practices worldwide.

 

Who we’re looking for

• Extremely motivated, wants their work to matter, and is not afraid to push hard to help Halter achieve its mission
• Love working as part of a high-performing team with high ownership and high accountability
• Prioritise understanding the complexity of the domain and have the ability to build deep empathy with our farmers
• Deeply experienced in the cloud infrastructure and backend coding with a love for solving hard problems and the knowhow to scale a system to millions of end users
• Are able to work in any technical stack but ideally have experience in AWS and Kubernetes, and have used Kotlin and/or Go at scale
• Unphased by large codebases and even larger problem spaces
• Thrive in ambiguity and don’t mind working with evolving requirements and perform at your best with high levels of ownership and accountability.
• A strong communicator that defaults to transparency and openness in decision-making while also being decisive to enable consistent momentum
• A team player that values collaboration, drives the team’s performance and excels in giving and receiving feedback
• Understands the importance of the Halter system as part of any farming business and holds the quality bar to 24/7 reliability and availability

What your day could look like

• Hands-on coding to deliver high-quality and reliable software
• Lead and contribute to cross-functional brainstorming and design sessions
• Lead cross-functional projects to enable open-source migrations
• Identify, fix and prevent problems as you ensure the reliability and availability of our systems
• Be a part of our 24/7 on-call support roster
• Implement improved engineering practices

Why our team loves working at Halter

• Dedicate yourself to solving real-world problems alongside an epic team in a culture designed around growth.
• A genuine and shared connection to our mission to make a difference in the world.
• The pride of joining an iconic New Zealand technology company. The excitement, risk, and reward of a high-growth technology scale-up on the global stage.
• Our ideas are truly valued, we are able to move fast, and our impact is real.
• State-of-the-art, dog-friendly office that’s been thoughtfully designed right in the heart of Auckland city. Did we mention dogs and cows?
• Healthy body, healthy mind. We’re partnered with Southern Cross Health Insurance to support your well-being.
• We offer 6 months of fully paid parental leave for primary caregivers, 4 weeks of fully paid secondary caregiver leave and many other parental benefits that support you and your family.
• Our personal growth is important. Halter offers an annual $1000 self-development budget to be used for anything that fuels personal growth.
• Our time to recharge is valued, we’re offered wellness leave and unlimited paid annual leave.
• We offer an inclusive and attractive remuneration package made up of salary, benefits and an employee stock ownership plan.
• Delicious snacks and drinks are available for your daily flow.

 

There’s a reason you visit your friends in person, live with your family and don’t do dinners over Zoom. Humans are wired for connection. We believe a world-class, in-person office culture is the best way for high-performing teams. 

 

Being office first is a core pillar of our culture. We believe in-person connections are key to driving your own growth, learning, impact, and building genuine long-lasting relationships. Strong relationships make it easier to disagree, give feedback, and do meaningful and aligned work. We don’t like having heaps of rules or policies, but this means having strong, trusted relationships is critical.

 

We’re office first, not office only. This means working from the office everyday is our default setting, but we flex when we need to.  We have a high-trust culture, so everyone is trusted to do what’s best for Halter. 

 

Our office vibe is something special, it’s hard to describe until you’re here, but people at Halter who have come from fully remote or hybrid companies say they could never go back - the high energy and spectacular people they are now surrounded by everyday makes work so enjoyable. Your growth, your learning and your impact is truly unlimited here, and a big part of that comes from being together solving problems, innovating, building context, and constantly learning from each other.