Where deep technical know-how meets nationally significant impact, bring your analytical edge to the payments infrastructure that affects every Kiwi.

• Shape NZ's payment security future with your technical expertise

• Translate complex standards into real-world outcomes for industry

• Work across a high-profile programme with genuine long-term scope

This permanent role can be based in Auckland or Wellington. NZ residency and legal work rights are required. Salary is competitive, reflective of both experience and the specialist nature of this work.

About the company

At the intersection of financial services, technology and industry collaboration sits an organisation whose work touches every New Zealander. They work closely with banks, scheme operators and industry participants to keep payment infrastructure secure, resilient and ready for what's next. It's a small team with an outsized impact, and they're genuinely invested in the people who help them get it right.

About the role

This is a newly created, permanent role at the centre of one of the most consequential infrastructure projects in New Zealand right now. A multi-year industry initiative is underway to strengthen the security, resilience and future-readiness of the country's entire payments ecosystem, and this role exists to drive it forward. Working closely with management committees, internal stakeholders and industry participants, you'll analyse, interpret and translate complex technical standards and security concepts into practical outcomes that the whole industry can act on. Alongside that, you'll support ISO 20022 investigations, market practice development and cross-industry coordination for the High Value Clearing System. This is not a role for generalists; it calls for someone who is genuinely at home in dense technical material and has the credibility and interpersonal skills to gain and hold the confidence of stakeholders full of competing interests.

Day-to-day responsibilities

• Support the structured design, analysis and delivery of payment security uplift and standards modernisation activities across the programme.

• Analyse the impact of security and messaging changes across participants, vendors, scheme operators and clearing systems, and help the industry understand what that means for them.

• Interpret technical and regulatory standards, including PCI compliance frameworks, NIST guidance, and encryption and key management principles, turning them into clear business and operational requirements.

• Contribute to discussion papers, governance materials, risk assessments and industry guidance that people actually use to make decisions.

• Support working groups and management committees with well-structured analysis, clear recommendations and high-quality documentation that moves things forward.

• Assist in identifying risks, interdependencies and implementation challenges associated with security and standards uplift before they become problems.

• Support ISO 20022 investigations, analyse message flows and routing models, and help develop and maintain market practice documentation and participant guidance.

Experience and skills

You bring 7+ years in payments, financial services, telecommunications or another regulated environment involving technically complex or standards-driven change, alongside a tertiary qualification in information systems, information security, engineering, or equivalent professional experience that got you to the same place.

Genuinely comfortable in ambiguity and at ease with formal technical documentation, structured message schemas, wire formats, protocol specifications, translating what you find there into outcomes the whole industry can act on. Experience analysing structured data at a field or schema level, including sequencing, validation rules and data constraints, will be highly regarded.

A sound understanding of modern payment security environments and control frameworks, with the confidence to hold your own in discussions involving encryption, key management, compliance environments and global standards bodies.

You've built trust in complex, multi-stakeholder environments before, across industry participants, vendors and governance bodies, and you know how to move a room forward when not everyone is starting from the same place.

Intellectually curious, analytically sharp and highly organised, you form well-reasoned positions even when the guidance isn't fully written yet, and you bring people with you when you communicate them.

Application process

Your application will be treated with complete confidentiality. Intent +Purpose will speak with you directly before your details are shared with our client or any third party. We are committed to a fair, inclusive process and welcome applicants from all backgrounds, diverse experience and non-traditional career paths, with real examples of required skills that are genuinely valued here.

Please allow up to ten days for review and response to your application.