Service Owner (L1) - Digital Channels Insight & Development

• Lead a specialist digital team supporting Inland Revenue’s online services
• Permanent opportunity
• Help shape how development, automation, data and insight capability is focused on the work that matters most

The Opportunity | Ara Whiwhi Mahi  

Inland Revenue’s digital services play a critical role in how New Zealanders meet their tax and social policy obligations. Our online channels support high-volume customer interactions every day, and they need to remain reliable, secure, accessible, and easy to use.

We are looking for an experienced people leader to lead our Digital Channels Insight & Development team. This team brings together specialists in development, automation, and intelligence and insight. Their work supports the ongoing delivery, improvement and stewardship of Inland Revenue’s key digital channels, including myIR and Gateway Services.

This is a leadership role for someone who can bring structure, clarity and delivery focus to a complex digital environment. You will help ensure specialist capability is focused on the right priorities, that work is planned and delivered well, and that trade-offs are made clearly when demand exceeds available capacity.

You will work closely with other digital leaders, delivery teams and specialists to make sure development, automation and insight capability is applied where it can have the greatest impact for customers, the organisation and the wider tax system.

This role may be based anywhere in New Zealand where IR has an office.

In this role, you will:

• Lead a specialist team: You will lead development, automation, and intelligence and insight specialists, setting clear expectations for delivery, quality, performance and contribution.
• Prioritise work and manage trade-offs: You will help determine where specialist effort is best applied, balancing competing demands across planned change, service improvement, operational support and wider organisational priorities.
• Support delivery across teams: You will connect specialists into priority work across digital delivery teams, ensuring their expertise is used effectively and at the right time.
• Maintain delivery confidence: You will develop delivery plans, monitor progress, identify risks and blockers, and intervene where needed to protect quality, technical standards and outcomes.
• Strengthen digital channel performance: You will support work that improves the stability, accessibility, automation, onboarding, insight and ongoing performance of Inland Revenue’s digital services.
• Build capability and accountability: You will coach and support people, strengthen ways of working, and create the conditions for specialists to perform well through complexity and competing priorities.

About you | Mōu

We are looking for someone with strong people leadership experience and a practical understanding of digital delivery in a complex environment.

 You will bring:

• Experience leading specialist or multidisciplinary teams in a digital, technology, service delivery, product, data, automation or operational environment.
• Experience managing demand through structured planning and prioritisation, including making and communicating trade-offs.
• The ability to balance immediate delivery pressures with the longer-term needs of services, systems and customers.
• Confidence working across teams and disciplines to align specialist capability to delivery outcomes.
• Strong judgement, including the ability to identify when work needs to be escalated, reprioritised or reshaped.
• The ability to set expectations, coach people, strengthen accountability and support performance under pressure.
• A focus on quality, service health, customer outcomes and sustainable delivery.  
• Motivated by the opportunity to contribute to public services that affect people across Aotearoa New Zealand

You do not need to have worked in tax before, but you will need to be comfortable leading in a large, complex environment where digital services are important to customers, business operations and public outcomes.

If this sounds like the kind of leadership challenge you want to contribute to, we’re keen to hear from you.

Apply here | Tono mai

Please apply online with your CV and supporting information, clearly outlining your experience against the requirements for this role.

For more information about the role please contact [email protected]   

We recognise that AI tools can support application preparation.  Just make sure your responses reflect your own experience—we’re keen to get to know the real you and what you can bring to the role.  

Like you, we pride ourselves on our friendly and informative communication. If you need accessibility assistance at any point in the application process or would like to know more about what accessibility and inclusion means to us, please call 0800 775 247 to leave a message and a member of the team will be in touch.

Applications close 1.00pm, Tuesday 11 August 2026