Supporting IT engineers

IT engineers play a critical role in ensuring our IT systems are well designed, reliable and protected against malicious cyber criminals. The IT Engineers Technical Interest Group is driven by engineering principles to guide large-scale software development, focused around topics including green computing (the economical and environmentally friendly use of IT resources and computing technology), cybersecurity and AI. AI has been an important topic since the Group was founded in 2020. With the widespread use of generative AI, we focus on its profound impact within the IT profession. It’s difficult for anyone to predict just how much AI will transform computing. Software engineering has seen the most progress, with incredible advancements in AI tools that enable teams to boost development productivity to spend time on hard engineering problems.

Navigating and leveraging AI

One of our Group’s key aims is to help IT engineers navigate and leverage AI technologies in their professional activities. We understand that these technologies can be daunting, so we provide member support in the form of discussions, along with in-person and online events. We recently held a webinar featuring members of Engineering New Zealand’s AI Advisory Board, who develop best practice guidelines for engineers using AI technologies within their profession. Our events showcase software development tools that are underpinned by large language models to make software engineering easier and more productive.

Supporting the broader IT profession

Our members share their expertise across a broad range of professional activities. This includes supporting our members who are applying for engineering chartership, working on university programme accreditation and conducting public webinars to educate a wider audience.

We welcome anyone with an interest in the IT engineering profession to join our Group, particularly those working in the IT sector. Our current membership includes computing and engineering students, academics and IT professionals. This range of experience brings fresh insights and expertise over an incredibly diverse technical field. Our activities and events are driven by our members’ interests and we’re working towards future offerings including sponsorships in hackathons and running cybersecurity conferences.

Members of our steering committee are on Engineering New Zealand’s AI Advisory Board which advises New Zealand-based engineers on the use of AI in their profession. We’re developing a document to support software engineers in their AI journey, bringing agents into their software development platforms to become more productive engineers.

As AI becomes a tool used daily, the proposed Southland data centre would provide the country with much needed computing power. Investing in digital infrastructure keeps Aotearoa competitive and benefits both AI innovation and entities that use the innovations.

AI at AUT

AI has transformed the way we teach at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Our degree programmes and assessments are being developed to support students’ thoughtful use of AI to guide their learning process. Our assessments have been redesigned to facilitate learning assurances – to assure “understanding, observing and evidencing student learning”.

As Associate Professor of Computer Science, the ethical use of AI in research means that I can get instantaneous feedback on my writing and support on software development.

As I look ahead to the second half of this year and ask myself what is exciting me about IT, I reflect on how technology has transformed the way we live. We must ensure it is used in ways that strengthen our communities, improve our lives and tackle modern problems.

Dr Kenneth Johnson is Chair of Engineering New Zealand’s IT Engineers Technical Interest Group and Associate Professor of Computer Science at AUT.

Find out more about the IT Engineers group at bit.ly/it-engineers

This article was first published in the June 2026 issue of EG magazine.