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👋 This week's Shortlist has landed, welcome!
On the desk today:
Prefactor hits number one on Product Hunt - they're one of us, keep them at n# 1
Why the person who'd change your trajectory never applied to your ad
A quick poll for hiring managers - tell us what you want more of
An update on AFC Fractional
Want to get in front of startup hiring managers and the talent they're looking for?
3 AU startups worth watching - FlowGo, CrossCourtAI, Zabidoo
Roles from the AFC community - a founding engineer gig at Superstat that comes with a move to Austin, plus GTM lead at Kaiso
The wider ecosystem's hiring - Heidi Health, UpGuard, Q-CTRL, Workyard, RecordPoint, Zepto
The Startup Shortlist Community - who it's for and what's inside
Prefactor is sitting at number one on Product Hunt. Let's keep them there!
Prefactor is one of our AFC startup community, they've launched on Product Hunt. They're currently (at the time of writing) top of the leaderboard, however, that position isn't safe until voting closes, which is where you come in!
If you're running AI agents in production, they answer the question nobody has a good answer to: are your agents actually doing what they're supposed to? Real-time monitoring, scoring and intervention. First 50 signups get their first million agent steps free!!
Upvoting takes about thirty seconds. You'll need a Product Hunt account, and if you don't have one it's a ten second signup.
This week’s food for thought on hiring: the person who'd change your trajectory didn't apply
The average Australian job ad now pulls around 184 applications. That's SEEK's April 2025 number, up from roughly 41 the year before. Founders see that and feel reassured - look at all this interest, we'll be fine.
But volume isn't reach. Most of the workforce isn't looking at any given time. They're employed, heads down, doing good work somewhere else. So the person who'd actually change your trajectory, the one who builds out your sales engine or ships a product with a real moat around it, is almost never sitting in that stack of 184.
I've written up why the ad is only ever half the job, what San Francisco does differently, and the questions worth asking any recruiter before you hand them a search
Quick one for the hiring managers
We're building out what the Shortlist covers next quarter and we'd rather ask than guess. One click, takes a second.
What would make the Shortlist more useful to you?
The product is doing exactly what it says on the box! We have enquiries and meetings happening between Founders & Hiring Leaders + our Fractional Board listers.
For Founders, this platform gives you access to preview profiles & connect for free! Our profiles host references, case studies, and WILL become the home of Fractional in Australia.
For Fractional Leaders, you can build out your profile and be found by those who need your expertise! These profiles will become the thing you want to share with prospective clients who find you on and off the platform, and even better, with fast become a profile of excellence based off all the data we are currently collecting from how people are using the site and these profiles.
Our 25 foundational memberships are now gone but you can still join, our ridiculously cheap entry price has just been taken up and pricing has gone up (but is still completely reasonable at $29.99 a month!).
Looking to find your next Fractional Hire or, alternatively, be found…
Want to get in front of startup hiring managers and the talent they're looking for?
The Startup Shortlist goes out every week to the people building teams and looking to join them across Australia and New Zealand. If you've got a product, platform or service that helps companies hire better or helps people level up their careers - there's a spot with your name on it.
You can also feature your own role in the newsletter - with your own video, your own story, and your own campaign.
Before we jump in, let’s look at the companies that should on your radar!
The AU startups worth watching:
FlowGo - AI that turns messy sales orders and invoices into clean, automated workflows for distributors and SMEs.
CrossCourtAI - institutional-grade AI research copilot (Harper) helping investors analyse markets faster.
Zabidou - ultra-vision AI giving industrial robots real-time sight for advanced manufacturing.
🌱 Founders: want your roles in the digest automatically? Tell us whether we should pull from your ATS or your newsletter list - just hit reply with your career page URL!
Jobs from our AFC Community:
💻 Founding Engineer @ Superstat
First engineering hire at a Blackbird and Startmate-backed startup turning game footage into pro-level sports stats and highlights. Build the product from the ground up alongside the founders.
📍 Australia - relocating to Austin, TX
💼 Full-stack founding engineer | Generous salary + equity | Fast-growing, venture-backed
👉 Apply here: https://forms.gle/e1hkkiqC1d2uEGYa7
🧑💼 GTM Lead @ Kaiso
Own the front line at a B2B SaaS platform making ISO compliance painless for engineering and logistics SMEs - cold-call, demo, and shape the go-to-market motion in true 0-to-1 mode.
📍 Melbourne
💼 Early-stage GTM / sales | Full-time | B2B SaaS, phone-comfortable, loves the chaos
👉 Apply here: DM Derek Sheen in the AFC Slack - see full details in the #job-board channel
Jobs from the wider ecosystem, continued below 👇
Jobs from the wider Ecosystem:
🧑💼 Deployed Product Manager, Health Systems @ Heidi Health
Own end-to-end delivery of Heidi's AI medical scribe inside hospital and health-system customers - a customer-facing product role at one of Australia's fastest-growing healthtech companies.
📍 Sydney
💼 Product / deployment | Full-time | Series B healthtech
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/heidihealth.com.au/9a4b75f9-3ada-4507-b20c-d47727fc5d24
Want to see more from Heidi Health? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/heidihealth.com.au
💻 Software Engineer (Multiple Levels) @ UpGuard
Build the AI-powered cyber-risk platform thousands of companies use to monitor their attack surface and third-party risk. Roles open across levels.
📍 Sydney
💼 Software engineer, all levels | Full-time | Series C cybersecurity
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/upguard/ad7beb2a-bf35-4689-84aa-29a1e14ad7d9
Want to see more from UpGuard? https://jobs.lever.co/upguard
💻 Senior Mechanical Technician @ Q-CTRL
Hands-on role building the hardware behind Q-CTRL's quantum sensing and control technology - one of Australia's standout deep-tech companies.
📍 Sydney
💼 Mechanical technician | Full-time | Series B quantum / deep tech
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/q-ctrl/cef2d854-9abe-464d-b931-e3086c3d9b7a
Want to see more from Q-CTRL? https://jobs.lever.co/q-ctrl
🎯 Paid Marketing Specialist @ Workyard
Run paid acquisition for the workforce-management platform helping construction and field-service teams track labour, time and job cost.
📍 Sydney
💼 Paid marketing | Full-time | Venture-backed construction SaaS
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/workyard/04fa9c1e-0d55-4a58-ab07-bb710b1b3651
Want to see more from Workyard? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/workyard
🤝 Technical Consultant @ RecordPoint
Help enterprise clients roll out RecordPoint's data-governance and records-management platform - a client-facing role bridging product and delivery.
📍 Sydney
💼 Technical consulting | Full-time | Data-governance SaaS
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/recordpoint/8b826459-b189-41a6-8e77-fff8a750d219
🧑💼 Strategic Growth Manager @ Zepto
Drive new revenue for the account-to-account payments company powering PayTo for enterprise merchants as Zepto scales its network.
📍 Australia
💼 Growth / commercial | Full-time | Series A fintech
👉 Apply here: https://zepto.bamboohr.com/careers/99
Want to see more from Zepto? https://zepto.bamboohr.com/careers
Want us to scrape your job board? We're doing a wide scrape across startup job boards right now, getting open roles in front of a community of founders, operators, and startup talent. Want yours in the mix? Send us an email and we'll add your board to the rotation.
Have you joined The Startup Shortlist’s Community?
There's a members space behind this newsletter built for startup talent with a year or more in startups behind them. Inside:
Comp data on what startups actually pay (in the works)
First look at new Kairos roles before they go public
A members-only space with people who get startup life (warming up but live!)
A profile that puts you in front of hiring companies
Whether you're plotting your next move or just want to know your worth - this is the room to be in. Please note, we’re in build phase so this will get better with time & momentum!
That's a wrap for this week - see you in Slack in the meantime.
Catch you Tuesday!
Megan 🚀