Starboard is a mission-driven SaaS platform securing critical infrastructure, networks, and operations for governments, defense agencies, and high-stakes enterprises across NATO and five eye countries. Our technology bridges the gap between cutting-edge cybersecurity capabilities and the real-world constraints of policy, procurement, and operations.

As a Senior Cloud Engineer, you’ll be a key contributor to the design, delivery, and optimisation of Starboard’s cloud platform. You’ll work across infrastructure, automation, and developer experience helping shape our foundations for secure, scalable operations.

If you’re passionate about building scalable, secure systems that truly make a difference we want to hear from you.

This is a temp position for 9 months. 

What you’ll bring

Technical expertise

• An understanding of Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including GKE and IAM.

• Experience designing secure, scalable, and highly available architectures.

• Proficiency with Terraform, Kubernetes, and CI/CD tooling.

• Working knowledge of GitOps and policy-as-code frameworks (e.g. ArgoCD, OPA).

• Experience with SRE principles, monitoring, and alerting (e.g. Prometheus, Datadog).

• Proven ability to optimise performance, cost, and reliability across environments.

• Hands-on experience with containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes, GKE)

• Proficiency in at least one programming or scripting language (Python, Go, Bash).

• Strong grasp of version control, secure coding, and software best practices.

Professional expertise

• You're a keen mentor, who enjoys passing on knowledge to more junior members.

• Have a passion for automation, developer experience, and building resilient cloud systems.

• Proven ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical audiences.

• A team player who proactively communicates and has experience working in a hybrid environment with a mix of in office and remote team members

• Has used collaboration tools such as Slack, Miro, Google Suite. 

• Comfortable being on an on-call roster.

• Able to hold a Restricted level clearance with the NZ government. 

Day to day you’ll be:

• Mentoring team members and contribute to a culture of continuous improvement and learning.

• Designing and implementing scalable, secure, and fault-tolerant solutions on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

• Delivering a new landing zone aligned with best practices for security, networking, and automation.

• Building Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) using Terraform for repeatable and auditable deployments.

• Redesigning and modernising Kubernetes architecture with GitOps tools such as ArgoCD and Kargo.

• Enhancing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines to improve quality, automation, and deployment velocity.

• Implementing SLAs, SLOs, and monitoring standards to strengthen observability and reliability.

• Building core components of our internal developer platform, including:

  • Unified observability stack (Grafana, Loki, Prometheus)

  • Reusable deployment templates and golden paths

  • Scalable deployment infrastructure for microservices

  • Service mesh and networking components for reliability and security

• Creating monitoring and alerting systems for 24/7 reliability and incident response.

• Collaborating with other Senior Engineers and the wider development team to enhance automation, CI/CD, and developer experience.

Why choose Starboard? 

• We’re building something significant with cutting edge tech!

• The work is intellectually challenging, complex, and varied. Our team put it well by saying “interesting problems,” “never boring,” “learning quickly”

• You'll be joining a crew that is easy to get along with, clever, authentic and gracious. 

• We take pride in our flexible approach. Whether you enjoy having flexibility to head off to pick up the kids, walk the dog, or want to come into the office full time - our ways of working are set to flex for you.

Recruitment Process

We know that accepting a job offer is a big decision, and for there to be commitment on both sides, we understand that we both need data points to make informed decisions. Which is why at Starboard we have a three stage recruitment process that’s designed to help us get to know each other, and for you to get to know the crew and our way of work and culture. 

Stages:

Testing - depending on your role you may need to complete a test before coming in to meet our team. You’ll be paid for your time, and will always receive feedback about your test, whether you progress to the next stage or not. 

First conversation - this is where it gets a bit deeper, where we dive into the grit of what it takes to succeed in the role. We will always put you in a room with two other people you will work with the closest, so you get to know them better too. 

Second conversation -  you’ll meet wider members of the team who you’ll collaborate with, this could be an Executive team member or people from outside your direct department. This will give you an understanding of priorities across the business and how we co-collaborate. 

References - through our process we aim to identify people who can add to our culture, so by this stage we’re feeling pretty good about it all. Don’t be surprised if we’re calling your referees and drafting your offer in parallel to these conversations! We’ll always ask to speak to at least two previous direct managers you’ve reported to so we can get an understanding of how to best support you to succeed here at Starboard. 

We strive to be transparent on how we operate here, so you know what’s going on in the background of your recruitment process. We know job hunting is time and energy consuming; so thanks again for your deciding we’re worth the investment.