On-call that doesn't ruin your life.
We are a small, senior team running production for organisations that genuinely depend on it. That only works if the people doing it are treated like it matters.
What we actually offer
Written plainly, because most careers pages are a list of adjectives.
On-call is paid and capped
A retainer for being on the roster, plus payment per callout. No more than one week in four, and a hard cap on consecutive weeks. If the roster gets thin because we have taken on too much, we turn work away rather than increasing rotation frequency.
You get time back
Called out overnight? You do not start at 9am. This is written policy rather than something you have to ask a manager for, because having to ask is how it stops happening.
Certifications are funded
Exam fees, training and study time during work hours. Renewals too, which is the part companies usually forget to budget for. Certification progress sits in your development plan, not in your own time.
You will not be handed a system blind
Nobody joins an on-call roster for a customer they have not worked on during business hours. Nobody is asked to operate something they have not been given time to understand.
Runbooks are the job, not overhead
Writing and testing runbooks is billable, scheduled work — not something you squeeze in after delivery. It is the reason our on-call is survivable, so it is resourced as such.
Senior-only hiring
We do not run a pyramid. That means no juniors to supervise and no billable-hours target, and it also means the bar to join is high and the interview is technical throughout.
What we're hiring for
Sydney, or remote anywhere in Australia. All roles require Australian work rights; some customer engagements additionally require Australian citizenship for government work.
Senior Cloud Engineer (AWS)
You will run production AWS estates for a handful of customers, design the platforms you then operate, and take a share of the on-call roster.
- Five-plus years operating AWS in production, not just building it
- Terraform to a standard you would defend in code review
- You have been on call before and have opinions about how it should work
- AWS Solutions Architect or SysOps certification, or willingness to hold one
Cloud Security Engineer
Guardrails, detection engineering, compliance evidence and incident response across our customer base — plus our own internal ISMS.
- Hands-on AWS security: Organizations, SCPs, Identity Center, GuardDuty, Config
- Experience with Essential Eight, ISO 27001, SOC 2 or IRAP in practice
- Comfortable in an assessment room explaining a control to a sceptical assessor
- You would rather prevent a finding than triage one
FinOps Practitioner
Cost attribution, commitment strategy and optimisation delivery across a portfolio of Australian customers — including the commercial conversations.
- Deep familiarity with the Cost and Usage Report, not just Cost Explorer
- You can hold a conversation with a CFO and with an SRE on the same day
- Enough engineering depth to know when a recommendation is unsafe
- FinOps Certified Practitioner or equivalent experience
Speculative
We hire when we meet the right person, not only when a role is posted. If you have run serious production on AWS in Australia and the six points above appeal to you, write to us.
Tell us about a system you operated and something that broke. That is more useful to us than a CV, and it is what the first interview would have been about anyway.
Write to usFour conversations, about three weeks
- 1
Intro call — 30 minutes
With one of the four accountable functions. What you have run, what you want next, and what we are actually like to work at.
- 2
Technical conversation — 90 minutes
A real problem from a real engagement, discussed the way we would discuss it internally. No whiteboard algorithms, no take-home exercise.
- 3
Meet the team — 60 minutes
Two engineers you would work alongside. Their questions, and more importantly yours — this is where you should ask about on-call.
- 4
Offer
Within two business days of the last conversation, with the salary band stated. We do not negotiate down from a number we opened with.
Also on offer
- Flexible hours and genuine remote work across Australia
- Conference attendance budget, including at least one interstate or overseas trip
- Home office and equipment allowance
- Paid parental leave for all parents, not only primary carers
- Salary bands published internally and reviewed annually
What we are not
We are not a start-up with equity upside, and we are not a large firm with a defined career ladder and internal mobility. We are a small services business that pays well, treats on-call seriously, and does careful work for customers who depend on it. If that is not what you want, it is better for both of us to know now.
Tell us about something that broke
A system you operated, what went wrong, and what you changed afterwards. More useful than a CV, and more interesting to read.