Senior engineers run their own scopes. No layers. The engineer your clients meet is the engineer who delivers. We work across dairy, meat, energy, refrigeration, and pulp & paper. Complex multi-discipline projects where the engineering has real consequences. If you're good at what you do, come and talk to us.
No siloed disciplines. No hand-offs between a design office and a delivery team. The engineers our clients meet are the ones who do the work: concept, detailed design, site, commissioning. You sit with the senior engineer on the job, not three layers down a project structure.
Our senior engineers run mechanical and plant integration work front-to-back. The engineer who scopes the job is the one on site at commissioning.
Most of our work is on operating plant: dairy spray dryers, meat works, refrigeration engine rooms, pulp mills, geothermal heat plants. The plant has to keep running. Mistakes have consequences you can hear from the carpark. That keeps the engineering honest and the feedback loop short.
The team30Engineers and designersacross two offices
About thirty people. Two offices.
Auckland in Grafton, Rotorua on Amohia Street. A mix of professional engineers, graduate engineers, designers and CAD specialists. Mechanical, structural, process and controls disciplines all under one roof, so multi-discipline projects don't need to be coordinated across three firms.
Owner-operated. Hamish Bennett and Greg Moore lead the practice and both still work as billable engineers. Hamish on industrial process, dairy and refrigeration; Greg on forestry, pulp & paper and geothermal. Because the directors actually do engineering, decisions get made quickly and technical questions get answered by someone who knows the plant.
Graduate pathway
Real plant work from day one.
Year one you shadow a senior engineer on live projects: site visits, design reviews, commissioning. You see the full job, not a slice of it. Year two you run your own scopes under supervision, with the senior engineer reviewing your work and backing you on site. Year three and onward you lead jobs and start mentoring the next graduate intake.
CPEng pathway supported. We fund the assessment, write the references, and structure the work to cover the competencies. Four of our engineers are working through this pathway right now. Several of our current senior engineers came through Dobbie as graduates.
What we offer
Tools, training, and time to do good work.
We back the courses that make you a better engineer, not the ones that pad a CV. The specifics:
Training
CPEng, funded properly
CPEng assessment support, Engineering New Zealand conferences, technical short courses, refrigeration and pressure-equipment qualifications.
Pay and cover
Insurance and KiwiSaver on top
Free health insurance and a matched 4% KiwiSaver contribution on top of salary.
Flexibility
Hybrid working week
Auckland or Rotorua office, hybrid week, occasional remote when the job suits it.
Workspace
Grafton office, refurbished 2026
Quiet floor, good light, walking distance to the train and to the Domain.
Tools
The tools and software you'll use
Inventor, AutoCAD PLANT, AutoPIPE, PV Elite, Ansys. Claude Teams accounts with a per-user token allowance, so the boring parts of the job get done faster and you spend more time on the engineering.
Standards
Systems behind every project
ISO 9001, externally audited and used daily. Toitū Net Carbon Zero certified workplace.
Get in touch
Send a CV and a short note.
Email careers@dobbie.co.nz with a CV and a short note about who you are. Name the role and the office. If none of the listed roles quite fit but you think you'd be a good match, send it through anyway. We read everything that comes in.
Two we will always make time for, listed or not: a structural engineer who knows industrial plant, and an FEA specialist.
Apply online
Apply here.
Upload your CV and cover letter directly. Or email careers@dobbie.co.nz if you prefer. Both routes reach the same inbox.
Inside Dobbie
Where you'd actually be working.
Dobbie at the ACE NZ SME Summit · 2026Dobbie at the ACE NZ SME Summit · 2026Dobbie at the ACE NZ SME Summit · 2026
