Technology,
& Software
Engineering talent for product-led growth and platform scale.
We place engineering, product and platform talent into SaaS, cloud and enterprise-software firms where technical fluency in the brief determines the quality of the shortlist.
What we do here
This is the largest single market we operate in by volume. Our typical engagement is a permanent specialist search at the senior-IC to engineering-manager level - the band where mis-hires are most expensive and where contingent agencies most consistently produce noisy shortlists.
What “great” looks like at intake
We will spend the first call pressure-testing three things: the technical stack, the realistic candidate pool in the city, and the founder or hiring manager’s actual tolerance for variance on seniority. If those three are not aligned in your head before you brief us, our first job is to align them.
Recent engagements in this sector
A confidential staff-level platform search for a scaling SaaS firm; an EM-level appointment into a post-Series-B product company; multiple senior backend hires for a cloud-infrastructure scaleup.
Capabilities we cover
- ▸ Full-stack and product engineering
- ▸ Platform, DevOps and SRE
- ▸ Mobile (iOS / Android)
- ▸ Engineering leadership and Heads of
Typical roles & bands
- Senior / Staff Software Engineer$130k-$190k base
- Engineering Manager$160k-$220k base
- VP / Head of Engineering$200k-$300k total
- Staff Platform / SRE$150k-$210k base
- Source. The founder's placement records across 15 years of recruitment practice, continuing into AEY, plus ongoing market benchmarking.
- Composition. Base salary unless otherwise specified. Total-comp roles include equity / bonus / day-rate where stated.
- Variance. Actual offers move with stage, location, technical specialism, clearance status and the candidate's alternative options. The bands above are 25th–75th percentile, not floor and ceiling.
- Currency. All amounts in AUD.
Market notes
The Australian software market has consolidated around a small number of well-funded scaleups and a long tail of post-Series-A product companies. The hiring constraint is no longer headcount budget - it is whether the brief is calibrated for the engineer who can ship in a small team without process scaffolding.
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane - actively maintained pool, refreshed quarterly.
Anonymised, never shared. Maintained as a live working map, not a database.
The October hiring window most founders miss
The senior candidates who never appear on the market in July or August surface in the first fortnight of October. Firms that have their search running by mid-September win it. Firms that start then do not.
The counter-offer that never closes
The counter-offer you accepted is usually the offer your current firm should have already been paying you. The reason they only paid it when you resigned is the reason you should still leave.
The reference call founders keep botching
A reference call that stays inside the questions the referee expects produces no useful signal. The founders who hire well have moved to a different structure - and they run it themselves, not through a recruiter.
- Sydney · September 2026Head of Platform EngineeringExecutive Search12d shortlist · 56d close
Let's talk about technology & software.
A 30-minute call is enough for us to know whether we can add value - and whether you should be talking to us, or to someone else.