Staff Engineer | Sydney | Permanent
Sydney-based with a hybrid working model
Hands-on technical leadership — no people management
Own architecture across critical, high-scale systems
Surry Hills office close to public transport
The Opportunity
We are looking for an exceptional Staff Engineer to join a high-performing technology team and play a pivotal role in the architecture and evolution of a rapidly scaling digital platform.
This is a role for an engineer who wants to operate at Staff / Principal / Lead level without stepping away from the technology.
You will own the architecture of critical systems, make high-impact technical decisions across multiple teams and help shape the technical roadmap for your area.
You'll be expected to stay close to the code — designing systems, reviewing critical components, pairing with senior engineers and solving some of the most complex engineering challenges facing the platform.
This isn't architecture from the sidelines.
You'll have genuine ownership and influence over how the platform is built, scaled and operated.
What You'll Do
Own the Architecture
Own and evolve the architecture of one or more critical systems
Make significant architectural and technical decisions that span multiple teams
Define and drive the technical roadmap for your area
Ensure systems remain scalable, reliable, observable and maintainable
Lead Distributed Systems & Event-Driven Architecture
Be a technical authority across
message-oriented and event-driven architecture
Design durable, long-running workflows across complex systems
Solve challenges around delivery semantics, ordering, idempotency, backpressure and failure recovery
Build systems that remain resilient as scale and complexity increase
Set the Engineering Standard
Establish best practices for
Kotlin and Java
services
Improve performance, observability, testing and maintainability
Use tooling, templates and engineering practices to make good standards easy to follow
Lead by example through hands‐on engineering and high-quality code reviews
Drive Cloud & Delivery Engineering
Help standardise and optimise a GCP setting
Work across GKE/Kubernetes, Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL, BigQuery and Pub/Sub




Mature CI/CD and engineering automation through GitHub Actions and Terraform
Champion a genuine "you build it, you run it" engineering culture
Think End-to-End
Guide integration between JVM backend services and
React / TypeScript
Shape APIs exposed to partners and external platforms
Ensure API contracts are typed, versioned and built to last
Build resilient integrations with third‐party platforms you don't control
Mentor & Influence
Mentor senior engineers through design coaching, pairing and high-impact code reviews
Transfer engineering judgement rather than simply providing answers
Resolve architectural challenges across team boundaries
Build consensus around decisions that will stand the test of time
Communicate complex technical trade‐offs clearly to non‐technical stakeholders
What You'll Bring
We're looking for someone operating at the top end of the engineering profession — an experienced technical leader who has owned significant systems and can influence engineering direction across an organisation.
You'll ideally bring:
10+ years' software engineering experience, with recent Staff, Principal or Lead-level experience
Deep expertise in Kotlin and/or Java
Strong understanding of JVM concurrency and memory behaviour
Expert‐level knowledge of distributed and event‐driven systems
Deep understanding of messaging concepts including idempotency, ordering, backpressure and failure recovery
Hands‐on experience with GCP, particularly GKE/Kubernetes, Cloud SQL/PostgreSQL and BigQuery
Strong experience with Git and GitHub Actions
Hands‐on experience with Terraform and complex delivery automation
Working proficiency in React and TypeScript
Proven experience building resilient third‐party integrations, including reconciliation, retry and drift detection
A strong "you build it, you run it" mindset
The Type of Engineer We're Looking For
Technical capability is important,



but we're particularly interested in engineers who:
Think beyond individual projects and consider the wider system
Take ownership and are comfortable making difficult technical decisions
Can simplify complex problems without compromising scalability
Have strong technical judgement and know when to challenge the status quo
Enjoy mentoring and raising the capability of those around them
Can influence without relying on organisational authority
Are equally comfortable discussing architecture and getting hands‐on in the code
Care deeply about reliability, observability and engineering quality
Why This Opportunity?
This is an opportunity to have real architectural influence over a platform that is scaling rapidly and sits at the centre of a growing digital business.
You'll have the chance to:
Own critical architecture rather than simply contributing to it
Solve genuinely complex distributed systems challenges
Work with a modern
cloud-native technology stack
Influence technical direction across multiple engineering teams
Stay hands‐on while operating at Staff/Principal level
Mentor and elevate highly capable engineers
Build engineering standards that will have a lasting impact
What You'll Experience
Hybrid working from a modern Sydney office in Surry Hills
Convenient location close to public transport
Team discounts across a range of well‐known Australian brands
Access to Sonder, providing confidential 24/7 support for team members and their families
An inclusive, collaborative and innovative technology environment
The opportunity to work alongside ambitious and highly capable engineers
If you're a
Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer or Lead Engineer
who wants to remain hands‐on while having genuine ownership of architecture and technical direction, this could be your next challenge.
Paxus values diversity and welcomes applications from Indigenous Australians, people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and people living with a disability.
If you require an adjustment to the recruitment process, including the application form in an alternate format, please contact me on the above contact details.
#J-*****-Ljbffr

📌 Staff Engineer (Sydney)
🏢 Paxus - Technology + Digital Talent
📍 Sydney