We're looking for aHead of Engineeringwho's ready to take ownership of our engineering function and help shape how Respondent continues to grow.
You'll be the single accountable person for engineering output, setting technical direction, driving delivery, and building the foundation that lets us scale.
About Respondent
Respondent is building the infrastructure that powers participant recruiting for the research industry.
Our mission is straightforward but ambitious: to make it effortless for researchers to find high quality human participants, whether they're testing a product, exploring a market, or validating an idea.
From our founder's first recruits on a NYC subway to a global panel of4 million participantsacross 150+ countries, we now support research for companies like Microsoft, Dropbox, and P&G.;
Our panel is one of the most diverse and responsive in the industry.
We're a35 person teamacross Sydney, Manila, and the US.
We're intentional about collaborating in person: hallway conversations, whiteboarding sessions, and quick alignment cycles help us move faster and build something great together.
We've gone from 0 to 1, recently reachedprofitability, and intend to stay that way.
We're scaling with intention and reinvesting in the business to grow our platform, panel, and team.
Joining now means taking us from 1 to 10, and your decisions will directly shape how we get there.
The role
Right now, roadmap decisions, architectural calls, and platform work at Respondent are handled democratically amongst our engineers but we've hit a ceiling.
We need one person who owns engineering delivery end to end: make a call, move the team forward, and be accountable for the outcome(s) we drive.
You'll lead a team of 7 to 8 engineers while staying hands on in the code yourself.
Your technical credibility, not your title, is how you'll earn the team's trust.
The goal is simple: ship faster, ship better, and build the technical foundation that lets the business scale.
What you'll own
Tech roadmap: work closely with our Head of Product to balance feature delivery against broader technical priorities like tech debt, reliability, and platform health.




Product owns the backlog; you marry it into the bigger technical picture and make the final call on sequencing and tradeoffs.
Technical direction: set the bar on architecture and key technical decisions across the team.
You'll know when to cut corners and when not to, including forming a clear view on where AI assisted coding is appropriate and where it needs guardrails.
Platform layer: pick up the cross cutting technical work that sits between streams and doesn't naturally belong to any one engineer.
Team delivery: own delivery velocity.
Diagnose and fix underperformance and blockers fast, without waiting for problems to surface.
Coach engineers directly and raise the bar through hands on technical support and honest feedback conversations.
Hiring: run technical screens, help shape team structure, and make recommendations.
You'll have a strong signal on what good looks like and can articulate why.
What you'll bring
Startup hardened experience: ideally you've worked at a 10 to 100 person company where speed and ambiguity are the norm.
You know what it means to build something from scratch, since we're building an autonomous research platform for the first time, not optimising an existing system.
Genuine technical credibility: you're still writing code regularly.
If you haven't personally shipped something in the last 12 months, this isn't the right fit.
The team needs to trust your decisions, and that trust is earned through hands on technical work.
A direct, high bar approach: you set performance benchmarks and hold the team to them.
You're comfortable with hard conversations about underperformance or missed delivery, and you address issues quickly rather than letting them fester.
Real people leadership experience: you've directly managed 4 or more engineers before,



ideally in a startup context.
You can motivate, influence, and hold engineers accountable.
The team respects you and enjoys working with you, but you're not optimising to be liked by everyone.
A builder's mindset: you get your energy from shipping and delivering outcomes, not from running meetings or installing process.
You're wired to move fast.
Ambition and business mindedness: you want to understand the business deeply, think beyond engineering, and see this role as a genuine stepping stone into broader leadership.
Real ownership: you'll be the single accountable technical leader of a small, high ownership engineering team, with clear visibility of the future of the business.
Profitable and growing: we're a 35 person startup that's scaling, giving you the excitement of startup growth with the stability of proven traction.
Direct impact: your calls on roadmap, architecture, and delivery will shape how Respondent goes from 1 to 10, working with customers like Microsoft and Dropbox.
Modern tech and mindset: work with the latest tools and AI powered dev practices, with real influence over how AI assisted coding gets used across the team.
Culture that cares: be part of a tight knit global team across Sydney, Manila, and the US that's collaborative and supportive while holding a genuinely high bar.
While it's important for you to know what we're looking for it's equally if not more important for you to know what we don't vibe with.
Hiring is a difficult two-way process and we want to set you up for success if you so choose to apply.
As such, here's a quick overview of what we're not looking for:
Who this isn't for
This role isn't for someone whose default mode is check ins, career development frameworks, and letting people work on what they enjoy rather than what the business needs.
It's also not for someone who has drifted from the code.
If you haven't personally shipped something in the last 12 months, this won't be the right fit.
We're not looking for a process installer.
We need someone who can build fast in ambiguity and knows that process should serve delivery.
#J-*****-Ljbffr

📌 Head Of Engineering (New South Wales)
🏢 Respondent
📍 New South Wales