Design Assurance Engineer – Infrastructure

About the role

Waikato Waters is seeking a Design Assurance Engineer to ensure that water and wastewater infrastructure designs are safe, compliant, constructable, and ready for operational hand‑over. Reporting to the Design and Consenting Manager, you will work with consultants, developers and internal teams to identify and mitigate risks early in the project lifecycle.

Key responsibilities

• Provide technical assurance across externally designed infrastructure projects.
• Review and challenge consultant and developer design outputs for quality, constructability and operational fit.
• Undertake servicing and capacity assessments for developments and complex applications.
• Identify infrastructure constraints, upgrade requirements and key delivery risks.
• Ensure designs consider environmental, consenting and operational impacts before construction.
• Collaborate with Asset Management, Strategic Consenting, Project Delivery and Operations teams to resolve design issues.
• Support consistent application of engineering standards and assurance processes.
• Document and escalate material design risks or departures from standards.
• Contribute to improving technical governance across the infrastructure portfolio.

Required profile

• Engineering qualification in civil, structural, mechanical or a related infrastructure discipline.
• Experience in design assurance or technical review of water and wastewater projects.
• Strong understanding of engineering standards relevant to water and wastewater infrastructure.
• Proven ability to assess servicing and capacity requirements for developments.
• Capability to identify and manage technical risks before construction.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder‑management skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively with consultants, developers and operational teams.
• Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng) status or progress towards it (desirable).

Required skills

• Knowledge of water and wastewater engineering standards.
• Servicing and capacity assessment techniques.
• Technical risk identification and mitigation.