Staff Engineer

Paxus - Technology + Digital Talent; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Team discounts

Sonder 24/7 support access

Hybrid Sydney office

Job summary

Paxus - Technology + Digital Talent in Sydney is seeking a Staff/Principal Engineer to own architecture across high‑scale systems while staying hands‑on. You’ll influence multiple teams, drive the technical roadmap and tackle complex distributed challenges in a cloud‑native environment.

You’ll work in a hybrid Sydney setting with modern tooling, a strong emphasis on code quality, observability and scalable delivery. This role rewards deep engineering judgment and mentorship.

Qualifications

• 10+ years' software engineering experience with hands‑on architecture ownership.
• Strong expertise in Kotlin and/or Java and JVM concurrency.
• Deep understanding of distributed and event‑driven systems.
• Hands‑on experience with GCP and modern cloud tooling.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the architecture of one or more critical systems.
• Define and drive the technical roadmap for your area.
• Design durable, long‑running workflows across complex systems.
• Lead hands‑on engineering, reviews and maintain high code quality.
• Mentor engineers and influence architectural decisions across teams.

Skills

Kotlin

Java

Distributed systems

Event-driven

GCP & Kubernetes

GitHub Actions

React/TypeScript

Technical leadership

Tools

Terraform

BigQuery

Cloud SQL/PostgreSQL

GKE

Job description

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 environment
• 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.