Germans within the age limits can try New Zealand first on the working holiday visa for German citizens, which needs no job offer and allows temporary work but not a permanent job. Staying on as a skilled worker takes a job offer from an employer that Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has accredited to hire migrants. For first-tier roles on the Green List, New Zealand's list of occupations it needs workers for, including civil, mechanical and electrical engineers, such an offer at the pay INZ requires can lead straight to a resident visa, even from outside New Zealand. Other skilled workers can come on the Accredited Employer Work Visa, tied to that employer, and later apply through the Skilled Migrant Category, the residence visa that weighs qualifications, pay, registration or experience.

Check your degree before job hunting. INZ's exemption list for Germany lets bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from the institutions it names skip assessment by NZQA, New Zealand's qualifications authority, but excludes what it calls integrated qualifications (the Diplom, Diplom (FH), Magister Artium and Staatsprüfung, the state examination), which need NZQA's International Qualification Assessment. The police certificate is the Führungszeugnis from Germany's Federal Office of Justice, which only you or a legal representative may request: at a local registration office in Germany, online with an online-enabled ID card, or in writing with your signature officially certified. INZ wants police certificates to be recent, so order yours last.

The mistake to avoid, for engineers, is assuming a German engineering degree meets the Green List's requirement on its own. Those engineering roles accept a degree accredited under the Washington Accord, an agreement between national engineering accreditation bodies, and Germany is not among its signatories. A German degree can instead qualify through a letter from Engineering New Zealand, the body that registers Chartered Professional Engineers, certifying that the degree meets its benchmark for that status. Request its credential check early: where a degree is not recognised directly, equivalence may have to be shown through a knowledge assessment.