The company
Passionate, curious, and innovative are a few words that describe our people. We are powering the future, connecting communities, and igniting innovation. Orion owns and operates the electricity distribution network that provides power to central Canterbury. As the third largest electricity distribution network in New Zealand, we cover remote rural areas, regional towns, and the city of Christchurch.
We are an essential service and take our responsibilities seriously. We are community owned and working here means a career with meaning and purpose that makes a difference in your very own neighbourhood.
The role
This is an opportunity to take ownership of Orion's architectural direction at a time when technology, data and AI are playing an increasingly important role in how we operate and evolve.
As our Head of Architecture, you'll lead and mature our enterprise architecture practice, setting the direction for how our technology landscape comes together and helping us make smart, sustainable decisions about where we go next. You'll establish the frameworks, standards and governance that give us consistency while ensuring architecture remains practical, accessible and genuinely useful to the people delivering change.
This isn't about architecture for architecture's sake. We're looking for someone who understands the discipline deeply but knows how to apply it pragmatically. Someone who can recognise when a decision needs rigorous analysis and when we have enough information to move forward.
There's plenty ahead, our major core platforms are largely established but there are significant decisions to make around how the wider technology environment fits together, particularly as data, AI and new ways of working continue to evolve.
Set our enterprise architecture vision, target state and roadmaps, while maturing our governance, standards and ways of working
Lead and develop our architecture team, while personally guiding significant and complex architectural decisions
Shape technology investment and transformation priorities, bringing consistency to solution architecture and design assurance
Translate complex technical choices into clear business implications, risks and trade-offs
Get the most from our core platforms while making smart, pragmatic decisions about adjoining and emerging technologies
Work across IT and Operational Technology, shaping our approach to data, AI and automation while balancing innovation with resilience, cyber security, reliability and safety
About you
You'll bring strong enterprise and solution architecture experience with the ability to balance strategic thinking with practical decision-making. You'll simplify complexity, challenge constructively and communicate confidently with technical specialists, executives and business leaders alike.
We're looking for someone who brings:
Strong enterprise and solution architecture experience, including governance, standards, target states and roadmaps
Credibility to lead experienced architects while remaining hands-on with significant or complex decisions
Experience navigating complex transformation programmes, systems and vendor environments
Strong stakeholder engagement and executive influence, with the ability to turn complexity into clear decisions
Commercial judgement and a pragmatic approach that brings structure without unnecessary bureaucracy
Strong understanding of emerging technology, particularly data, AI, cloud and automation
Experience across utilities, energy, critical infrastructure or operational environments, with exposure to IT/OT environments such as SCADA, ADMS, GIS, EAM, telemetry or asset management systems highly valued
What they offer
You'll find at Orion, you can come as you are and just be you. You will be joining a workplace that values who you are, the work you do, and the way you think.
Importantly, we offer:
Flexible working arrangements, and flexible locations with our Head office in Burnside and satellite offices in Rolleston and Ferrymead
Five extra days of leave a year - three days of “My Days” leave and two “Orion Days” between Christmas and New Year
A broad range of workplace benefits from a wellbeing allowance to access to our holiday house in Hanmer!
You might be surprised to find out that the company that brings the power to your home is innovative, inclusive, progressive, and quite good fun.