Engineering Manager · Sydney, Australia

James Mckenzie

I build high-performing engineering teams, resilient infrastructure and the automation that lets both move faster.

View experience Say hello
15+ Years in software
5+ Years in engineering management
2 AWS certifications
10 Current development team
01 - About

Engineering leadership grounded in hands-on experience

I'm an Engineering Manager based in Nelson, New Zealand and heading to Sydney 2 November, currently leading the development team at The Hustle. Over 15 years I've moved from freelance developer to senior engineer to leading teams of up to ten, and I still write code, review architecture and get into the infrastructure alongside my team.

My background spans frontend (React), backend (PHP - Symfony, Laravel, Silverstripe and .NET), databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB) and cloud infrastructure on AWS, which lets me make credible calls on technical direction while staying focused on the people and process side of the job - hiring, mentoring, stakeholder management and building the systems that let a team ship reliably.

I'm a certified Scrum Master and hold both the AWS Cloud Practitioner and AWS Developer Associate certifications.

02 - Experience

Where I've worked

  1. The Hustle

    Engineering Manager · Nelson, NZ · Apr 2021 – Present
    • Lead a development team that grew from 5 to 10 engineers, personally managing interviewing and onboarding for 4 new hires.
    • Built a Jira → Xero integration using the ChatGPT and Xero APIs to auto-generate customer-friendly invoices from logged ticket time, saving roughly an hour of admin per day and eliminating missed invoices.
    • Shipped a self-service lead generation tool that audits site performance against Lighthouse metrics - driving 11 new hosting clients and ~50 hours of billable optimisation work in 6 months.
    • Pitched and led a rearchitecture of server infrastructure - from two Windows monoliths running ~100 sites each to a single Windows server plus right-sized Linux instances - cutting costs by a 5-figure annual sum and reducing outages.
    • Designed a deployment pipeline covering base image updates, blue-green deployments across all environments and automated testing, cutting deployment issues and manual testing overhead.

  2. BNZ

    Senior Developer · Wellington, NZ · Jan 2015 – Mar 2021
    • Maintained and upgraded the BNZ website (Silverstripe + React), while onboarding and mentoring other developers.
    • Built the site's home loan repayment calculator, its most heavily used feature by analytics traffic.
    • Automated setup of developer Mac laptops in a high-security banking environment, cutting onboarding from multiple days to a 30-minute, one-click install.
    • Co-led a 6-month, end-to-end upgrade of the site from Silverstripe 3.x to 4 - around 1,300 commits across 7 codebases, delivered without incident.
    • Played a key role in migrating from on-premises servers to AWS (2017–2018), coordinating with infrastructure teams and stakeholders; later earned AWS Cloud Practitioner and Developer Associate certifications.
    • Implemented geolocation features (e.g. nearest ATM/branch) using raw, performant SQL against PostgreSQL with the PostGIS extension.

  3. Jimmyweb

    Senior Developer · Sydney, Australia · Feb 2013 – Aug 2014

    Progressed into a senior development role after joining as an intermediate developer, delivering client web projects.

  4. Jimmyweb

    Intermediate Developer · Sydney, Australia · Jan 2012 – Feb 2013

  5. Freelance

    Developer, Self-employed · Jan 2010 – Dec 2012
03 - Impact

What leadership looks like in practice

5 to 10

Team doubled from 5 to 10 engineers, with hands-on ownership of hiring and onboarding.

~1 hr/day

Admin time saved by automating invoicing from Jira ticket time straight into Xero.

11 clients

New hosting clients generated by a self-service performance audit tool built in-house.

Almost 20k

Annual cost reduction from re-architecting server infrastructure onto right-sized instances.

1,300 commits

Delivered across 7 codebases in a 6-month Silverstripe 3 → 4 migration, without incident.

30 min

Developer onboarding time after automating secure laptop setup, down from multiple days.

04 - Skills

Technical foundation

Leadership & Agile

Team growth & hiring, mentoring, stakeholder management, certified Scrum Master.

Frontend

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React.

Backend

.NET, PHP - Symfony, Laravel, Silverstripe

Data

MySQL, PostgreSQL (incl. PostGIS), MongoDB.

Cloud & DevOps

AWS (Cloud Practitioner & Developer Associate certified), Docker, Jenkins, AWS CodeDeploy, CloudFormation, BitBucket Pipelines.

Systems Administration

Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL), Apache & Nginx, firewalls, SSL, load balancing, monitoring.

Testing

PHPUnit, Selenium WebDriver, Cypress.

Design

Intermediate-level design work in Photoshop and Figma.

05 - Contact

Let's talk about your team

Open to conversations about engineering leadership roles, technical strategy or advisory work.

[email protected] 022 437 6159 jamckp.com

References available on request.