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Hey! I lived in nz for a year and spent a season as a lifty at Treble Cone and would happy to provide some input.
Firstly, you'll want a working holiday visa. The visa duration will depend on where you're from (being from the USA, mine was valid for one year) and can be extended by an extra 3 months by 'woofing' on farms (working part time in exchange for housing and food) for 3 months. You can find more info on the NZ government's website, it's super helpful. You won't be able to get a job on a 3-month visitor visa, so that's pretty much your only option.
Next, you'll want to sort out where you want to work. On the north island, Turoa is the largest ski area, but it's pretty constantly windblown and bulletproof so I can't suggest spending a season working there. On the south island, you've got club fields, which are smaller scale ski fields that are generally more remote, and then a few larger resorts near towns. Most of my friends worked at The Remarkables, Coronet Peak, Mt hutt, and then of course TC and cardies. If you want to work for one of the first two areas, I'd suggest finding lodging in Queenstown, and if you're at TC or cardrona then look into Wanaka. Cardrona has the best park for sure but Remarks parks aren't bad either. TC has a bridger bowl vibe to it with mostly off-piste freeride terrain and then coronet peak has night skiing and tourists. Happy to elaborate further on these if you dm me. Most ski areas start accepting applications around February or March, and demand is often really high so you'll want to check their application portals frequently. You can also look into hospo jobs in town but those are slim pickings too, as travelers with hospo experience will get priority when there are 100 applications for a bartending position.
Unfortunately, the difficulty of securing a job aint shit compared to the difficulty of finding housing. Employee housing is far from sufficient so lots of my coworkers scrambled for flats with locals or even lived in their vans. I'd use any connection you have down there to get your name out early and scour the fb pages. It's quite common to receive a job offer and then not be able to find housing and have to bail. Housing is quite expensive (think downtown SLC / denver suburbs ish depending on how savvy you are) and demand is impossibly high. My friend and I beat out 104 other applications for a place only because we were the first application in on the fb posting and were able to tour the place on the same day we applied. It's gnarly. I had friends who literally sent in headshots, powerpoints, etc. in order to separate themselves from other applicants, and honestly stuff like that works super well. It's a numbers game. The ski areas have employee transit to get you to the mountain without a car but be prepared to walk a ways in cold weather early every morning.
With regards to your wages, you should be able to break even if you don't buy new setups and go drinking nightly and all that. I made $24nzd/hour as a lifty which is pretty standard across the board for entry-level ski field jobs. Food is beer is expensive and I stuck to ramen and bulk meals with my flatmates to keep costs down. Queenstown is a known party spot for kiwis, australians and travelers from all over the world, so don't be surprised if you return to uni with a love for drum and bass and a cig addiction. My friends and I would travel down there from wanaka for the occasional party weekend and it was sick, not sure my liver could survive being there for a full season though. Wanaka has nightlife but is much more tame, and has hiking and frolf and shit to keep you occupied on your off days. I loved it there and will be returning as soon as I marry a kiwi (himme up NZ hunnies). Working for TC or cardies gets you access to the other ski area as well, and working for remarks gets you coronet and mt hutt too. Don't expect over 200cm of snowfall in a season but I'd 1000% recommend giving it a go, best season of my life.
