At Appetise, we’re on a mission to revolutionise the way food companies understand their shoppers. Imagine being the first company in the world to track not just what people buy, but why and when they choose certain products. That’s what we do. We’re pioneering a brand-new approach called Share of Occasion, giving food brands real-time insights into consumer behaviour, backed by data no one else has access to.
For years, market research has been slow, expensive, and out of reach for many. Only the biggest food companies with large budgets could afford to get insights on shopper habits. We’re changing that. Our data isn’t just about who’s buying what—it’s about the real motivations behind those choices, from grocery planning to product usage. This is a game-changer for marketers in the food industry, empowering them to make smarter, faster decisions that directly drive growth.
We’re disrupting the market by bringing these insights to life through our shoppable recipe platform, already loved by over 60,000 households in New Zealand and Australia. Think of it as the ultimate meal-planning tool, where consumers find their perfect recipes and brands get invaluable data on consumer choices.
Why does this matter? Because we’re unlocking insights that food brands have never had before—showing them their true competition, and helping them stay ahead by deeply understanding their customers’ needs and habits. With Appetise, every meal becomes a chance to gain an edge.
We’re a growing, passionate team of 20, and with big ambitions for 2025 and beyond, we’re looking to add new talent to help us pull off this bold vision. Our partners, consumers, and investors are all behind us, and we’re ready to make waves globally.
If you’re ready to join a company that’s breaking new ground in the world of consumer insights, we’d love to meet you.
Requirements
We doubled our team in 2024 and have formed 3 technology teams and we’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to lead our Consumer Shopping experience team.

• You’ll lead a team of 3-5 engineers working on a Modern Web stack using PHP/Laravel to hit our team and quarterly goals.
• You’ll lead coordinating teams work and run meetings with our CEO & Head of Engineering and communicate outcomes across our company.
• You’ll lead the way improving the technologies we for application for business benefit.
• You strive for simplicity and help our team do the same.

What we’re looking for:

• You’ll have full-stack software engineering experience spanning lead roles across several teams in your career and have experience elevating consumer products.
• You desire leading a team while actively contributing technical work as the team is small and have experience mentoring engineers to grow.
• You’re experienced and passionate about guiding us on improving our technology, processes and help us drive better outcomes for Appetise.
• You could have built and launched mobile products, AI products or scaled products internationally to enable our capabilities in that space.
• You have strong communication skills and love to seek and accept feedback.
• You love to understand our customers directly and advocate for them.
• You build for simplicity, keeping things flexible and you’re able to pivot focus as we need to.
• You love to iterate quickly and launch changes often.
• You can deal with the uncertainties and dynamics of a start-up, but this gives you a lot of freedom and the opportunity to contribute your own ideas.

The team:
As a key member of our ~10 person technology team, you'll have the opportunity to directly contribute to revolutionising the way our customers shop for food, and how our brands use the data. You’ll be working on both our existing product and new products that we bring to market.
What’s the technology teams roadmap:

• We launched an Insights Application to enable brands to get to know their customers and thats offered to our 70+ Brands.
• We’re building new data architecture for both Insights and Product data used by both our B2B and B2C customer apps.
• We're excited to plan what's next involving Consumer features, Insights and AI work.

Our technology ecosystem you’ll also collaborate on:

• Our Application Engineers build on: Vue, Blade, Laravel, Tailwind, and Bootstrap.
• Our Application Engineers use a combination of the Laravel ecosystem: Laravel Breeze, Vapor, Nova, and open to exploring others.
• Our Data Engineers build on Snowflake.
• We’re exploring use of AI and Analytics tools to be integrated across our products.

You’ll report to Steve, our Head of Engineering.
Benefits
At Appetise, our culture drives our success.
We pride ourselves on creating an environment where talented and dedicated people thrive.
We live & breathe our core values

• We are strongest as a team
• Change for the better
• Learning from every outcome
• Commitment to our customers

This mindset helps us win in the fast-paced food tech landscape. We’re a true startup - our team contributes ideas that will help shape the future of Appetise. We’re a passionate team, we value open communication, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
We value a variety of personalities, viewpoints, and cultures, knowing that different perspectives bring a new flavour to our solutions.
Our HQ is in Christchurch. We embrace future flexibility and offer location and time adaptability. WFH is optional on Wednesdays and Fridays. Work at your peak efficiency. As long as the mahi is done, we are happy.
Our Christchurch office is pet-friendly and includes fun times like Treat Tuesdays, quarterly team days, and in-office games. Once a quarter, we put down the tools and have some fun for a day—kayaking, zip-lining, and paint and sip have been some of our recent faves. These fun moments aren't just perks, though (and they take place during work hours). They show the importance we place on working as a team and being passionate about what we do.
We’re open to discussing our salary range for this role, which is $120-150k. In addition, you’ll be eligible to participate in our employee stock ownership plan.
Get in touch!
We're on the hunt for the real deal: a new team member who is ready to excel. We're talking about folks who are not just talented but also eager to learn and grow, always asking the "why" behind the "what." Who roll up their sleeves, dive into their work, and bring a sharp intellect to the table.
We'd love to see a track record of great wins in your past roles. But it's not just about hard skills; we're also looking for team members who are collaborative, solution-focused and thrive in a fast-paced change environment. Being in the scale-up stage, all our roles are exposed to both strategic planning and end-to-delivery project delivery. We’re a keen bunch, and we want to deliver our best every time.
We want Appetise to be a place for everyone to learn and grow. If you’re unsure that you tick all the boxes but feel you’re close to what we’re looking for, please apply anyway, as we’d love to hear from you! This is where you could belong.
Once you apply, you’ll hear from us to acknowledge your application. If you have questions about any of the above or any accessibility requirements, we’ll be able to help you from there.
Applications close when we find the right person, so we encourage you to send in your info quickly if you’re interested.