Technical Lead

Job Summary:
JOB DESCRIPTION – TECHNICAL LEAD (UNIVERSE)
Location: Auckland, New Zealand (hybrid)
Division: Moshtix – Technology, working with Universe
Line Manager: GM – Technology
Contract Terms: Permanent, Full-time
THE SHORT OF IT
We’re looking for a Technical Lead to join Moshtix in Auckland and lead our engineering work on Universe, Ticketmaster’s global self-serve ticketing platform headquartered in Toronto. You’ll be a permanent member of the Moshtix engineering team, with a dedicated focus on building alongside the Universe engineering and product teams.
It’s a hands-on leadership role at the intersection of two platforms, two teams and two hemispheres. You’ll write and review code, shape architecture, grow engineers and set the bar for how a modern engineering team works with AI. You’ll also connect the two businesses so that what each does best strengthens the other.
THE TEAMS
Moshtix
Moshtix is a leader in ticketing for live music venues and greenfield festivals across Australia and New Zealand. We deal with heavy complexity and load for some of the biggest festivals and best-known venues in ANZ live entertainment. Moshtix was acquired by Ticketmaster in 2019 and still runs independently, with our own roadmap and technology, backed by a Fortune 500 company.
Universe
Universe is Ticketmaster’s self-serve ticketing platform, headquartered in Toronto, and specialises in timed-entry events, exhibitions and immersive experiences. It supports long-running attractions, touring exhibitions, festivals, and DIY events in more than 15 countries. It solves hard problems in capacity, scheduling and scale. Universe was acquired by Ticketmaster in 2015 and also operates with its own roadmap and a modern tech stack.
Where you fit
You’ll be employed by Moshtix and report into the Moshtix engineering department, with most of your day-to-day focus being on Universe. You’ll work with other tech leads, engineers, product managers, designers both locally (ANZ) and around the globe. That means owning delivery on Universe initiatives, contributing to Universe planning and architecture, and supporting the Universe platform to bring Moshtix’s experience of high-demand general admission on-sales and event experiences to Universe’s timed-entry expertise, and vice versa.
THE JOB
As a Technical Lead, you’re accountable for delivering high-quality, maintainable and performant software, and for leading the people who build it. You’ll work under general direction with plenty of autonomy, taking initiative, removing roadblocks and making sound technical decisions in a distributed environment where much of the conversation is asynchronous.
Our clients rely on both platforms to stay stable and fast when demand is spiky and unpredictable, whether that’s a festival on-sale at 8am or a sold-out exhibition release. You’ll architect solutions, ship frequently through continuous deployment and help make sure we build the right software in the right way.
WORKING HOURS & TIME ZONES
Auckland and Toronto are 16 to 18 hours apart depending on daylight saving, so Toronto’s working day ends around when Auckland’s begins. Making that gap work is a core requirement of this role, not an occasional extra.
You will regularly be required to work and attend meetings outside standard Auckland business hours. This is typically early mornings to overlap with Toronto’s afternoon, and at times evenings for planning, incidents or key releases.
Flexibility goes both ways. When the role needs you early or late, we’ll work with you to balance that within your working week, for example by adjusting your start or finish time around those sessions.
Occasional international travel, including to Toronto, may be required.
HOW WE BUILD WITH AI
AI has changed how software is built, and how we build it. We use AI tools and automation throughout our continuous discovery and delivery cycle, not only to write code. AI speeds up the work, and people stay accountable for it.
As a Technical Lead, you’ll help shape how your team adopts these tools: fluent and fast, but accountable. You own the result, whoever or whatever wrote the first draft.
TECH STACK
Universe is moving from legacy Ruby on Rails to contract-driven, service-oriented architecture built on TypeScript, Node.js, Next.js and Go, using Kafka, Postgres, MongoDB, gRPC, GraphQL and Kubernetes, with strong observability tooling.
Moshtix combines a long-running ASP.NET C# core with serverless Node.js/TypeScript services and React front ends on our GraphQL API, plus event-driven Lambda services on EventBridge. We use MSSQL, DynamoDB, S3, Redis and Elasticsearch, with Fastly at the edge, and deploy to AWS with GitHub Actions and AWS CDK.
WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING
Our job descriptions change as our business needs and priorities change, and your role may include additional duties, projects and team support as needed.
A typical week will include a mix of the following:
Technical leadership & delivery
Leading the technical direction and delivery of a cross-functional team focused on Universe, owning outcomes from discovery and design through build, release and support.
Architecting and building new products and features, and pragmatically maintaining and modernising legacy and core systems.
Staying hands-on by writing, reviewing and pair-programming on production code, and setting the standard for quality, testing, observability and performance.
Driving contract-driven, well-documented service and API design (e.g. protobuf/gRPC, GraphQL) so teams in different time zones can build in parallel with confidence.
Spotting where capabilities from one platform can strengthen the other, for example timed-entry capacity management and high-demand general admission on-sales, and making sound build, buy and reuse decisions.
Universe partnership
Collaborating and aligning with Universe engineering and product leaders locally and in Toronto, building strong, trusted working relationships.
Taking part in Universe planning, architecture and design reviews, and representing the APAC team’s work and perspective.
Turning time-zone distance into an advantage with async working models and follow-the-sun progress and support.
People leadership
Keeping your team positive, productive and healthy, and leading by example with professionalism and humility.
Setting clear expectations, tracking progress against objectives and holding regular one-on-ones with your direct reports.
Mentoring engineers and creating development opportunities that fit each person’s goals, including helping them grow as AI changes what great engineering looks like.
Taking part in hiring, from technical assessments and interviews through to selection.
Communicating with stakeholders across Moshtix, Universe and Ticketmaster, managing expectations and keeping senior leadership informed through regular formal and informal updates.
Reliability & operations
Keeping our platforms stable and performant under spiky demand by planning for major on-sales and launches, leading incident response and