Careers at Ackama

User Experience Design

We work primarily in an agile scrum delivery model, and embrace a certain level of uncertainty as we do our work, refining ideas as we go. We know the process of design thinking and user centric design methods and how to break the rules to work sensibly in two week sprints for discovery, research and solution design activities. Our primary tools are Balsamic, Sketch and the Adobe Creative Suite.

We’re first and foremost a service delivery company. That means that we work on lots of different problems, from greenfields projects to incremental improvements on existing websites. What you’re working on this week is unlikely to be what you’re working on in two or three months.

For us, your non-technical skills are just as important as the technical ones. We regularly have in house training on subjects like client communications, giving and receiving constructive feedback in actionable and kind ways, negotiation, and client management.

We encourage growth into leadership. There are opportunities to contribute to how the company works through various working groups (like our PM & Friends Group, or the Wāhine group). Our Head of Delivery supports designers to ensure projects run well and are delivered on time. Designers will be asked to participate in estimations for RFPs and attend sales pitches, and you may be asked to participate in mentoring other designers both in NZ and in AU.

Our spacious Wellington HQ looks out over tūī birds and kōwhai tree greenery in the heart of the CBD on The Terrace. We have investment time on Fridays which is a dedicated day for non-client related work to help improve the business or upskill ourselves.

Whatever your level, you’ll embrace our goal of making the world a better place, and you’ll be in tune with the values on our website. You’ll be someone who enjoys learning new technologies but who is focussed on the outcomes of the projects we take on. You’ll care about our clients, their end users, and your teammates.

As this is a senior role, you will have 5+ years of industry experience, and at least some experience of being a design lead on a project, managing clients and your design process. You’ll have experience in at least one of visual design, user research, co-design workshopping, and user experience. You will be able to judge when to make quick sketches to discuss ideas, wireframes and when to make polished UI designs. You’ll be someone who wants to help the team around you thrive, and you’ll be focussed on great outcomes for both our clients and their end users.

People of all ages, genders, and backgrounds are encouraged to apply to jobs@ackama.com - any attached documents should be sent as a PDF.

Software Development

We primarily work with Ruby/Rails, but we also work on projects using JS and React, Elixir and Phoenix, PHP with CWP Wordpress. We host on a mixture of managed platforms and AWS infrastructure (primarily EC2 and ECS). We strive to build solutions to client problems which find the right balance of speed of feature development, sustainable maintenance and ease of scaling. We support our apps in production for most clients.

We’re first and foremost a service delivery company. That means that we work on lots of different problems, from greenfields code to well established codebases. What you’re working on this week is unlikely to be what you’re working on in two or three months. Our project sizes also vary; it can be a single developer for a sprint or two, a small team of 2 or 3 devs for three months, and occasionally a large project with 4 or 5 devs for six months. Code review and pairing are really important to the way we work, so even if you’re on a project on your own, you’ll always have a wider set of teammates who are there to lend a helping hand.

For us, your non-technical skills are just as important as the technical ones. We regularly have in house training on subjects like client communications, giving and receiving constructive feedback in actionable and kind ways, negotiation, and client management.

We encourage growth into leadership. There are opportunities to contribute to how the company works through various working groups (like our Ops group, Front End Devs group, or the Wāhine group). Our Head of Development supports tech leads on projects with coaching and continuous learning opportunities to ensure projects run well and are delivered on time. Developers may be asked to participate in estimations for RFPs and attend sales pitches, and all our seniors have a few less experienced teammates to mentor.

Whatever your level, you’ll embrace our goal of making the world a better place, and you’ll be in tune with the values on our website. You’ll be someone who enjoys learning new technologies but who is focussed on the outcomes of the projects we take on. You’ll care about our clients, their end users, and your teammates.

For an intermediate we expect 2 - 3 years of industry experience and ideally some experience with Ruby/Rails. You don’t need to have experience being tech lead on a project, but we’d love you to be interested in doing so.

For a senior we expect 5+ years of industry experience, and at least some experience of being a tech lead on a project. Ruby/Rails experience is great but if you feel like you can jump in and come up to speed quickly, we trust your judgement. You’ll be someone who wants to help the team around you thrive, knows how to create good outcomes and enjoys the work of solving technical challenges.

People of all ages, genders, and backgrounds are encouraged to apply to jobs@ackama.com - any attached documents should be sent as a PDF.

Applicants for this position should have NZ residency or a valid NZ work visa.