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👋 This week's Shortlist has landed, welcome!
Last edition we asked what would make this newsletter more useful, and 277 of you were clear: more people, less scrolling - hot candidates and fractional profiles both. We've heard it, and we're shaping up ways to bring both into the Shortlist. Reply back if you have any other ideas!
On the desk today:
The AFC Census is open - five minutes gets you counted, first numbers we've had on this ecosystem
A pre-seed founder told us exactly what's missing from the Fractional Board - and we're opening the call for the right person
Two AU startups worth watching: Keeyu and Ovum
Capital Partner @ Advanced and Content Manager @ Assemblo, from our AFC Community
11 more roles from Buildkite, Brighte, Lawpath, Kasada, Atomi, Heidi Health, Lorikeet, Maincode, Caruso, Workyard and Dovetail
Plus what's inside The Startup Shortlist community, and how to get in
A reminder! The AFC Census opened Tuesday!
Today AFC opened its first Census - five minutes, asking how people building and hiring in this ecosystem are actually doing right now. Whether you'd still be doing it here in three years. What the CGT changes mean for you. What AI's actually done to how you build and hire. What you want built next.
This list sits on both sides of hiring - founders building teams, and the people looking to join them. Nobody's ever had a real read on what hiring looks like across this ecosystem right now, and that's exactly the number this Census gives us, cut by stage, sector and state.
Fill it in and you're in the first numbers AFC's ever had on itself in this ecosystem, and you get them back. Skip it and you're reading about a room you were in and didn't get counted in.
Take 5 minutes and be counted (aussiefoundersclub.com/census)
A founder just told us exactly what's missing from AFC’s Fractional board
A pre-seed founder posted a brief this week: outbound and lead gen for the ANZ market, SaaS experience, hands-on. They have a plan and they need someone to build the motion around it, run it until it's producing, then hand it to the BDR and SDR hires that follow.
We went looking for a match and found a gap instead. The board's stacked with CROs, RevOps leads and GTM strategists, brilliant at setting direction. Fewer people whose thing is standing the engine up and getting it running before they hand it over. At pre-seed there's nobody to delegate to, so whoever takes this is in the detail from day one and still making every call.
That's a different shape of fractional and we don't have enough of it yet. If it's you, get listed and we'll put you in front of the hiring manager.
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:
Keeyu - an AI agent that proactively catches ecommerce fulfilment, shipping and payment problems before customers notice.
Ovum - an AI health-journaling app for women, bringing together symptoms, cycle data, wearables and medical history in one place.
🌱 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:
Jobs from the wider ecosystem, continued below 👇
🧑💼 Capital Partner @ Advanced
Join Advanced's R&D finance team working directly with ambitious Australian founders and CFOs - a full-cycle commercial role from pipeline building through to funding and beyond.
📍 Remote-first (Sydney or Melbourne preferred), working with companies nationally
💼 Commercial/BD background | Full-time | Fintech, R&D finance
👉 Apply here: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4452323242/
🎯 Content Manager @ Assemblo
Own the content marketing offering for a nimble, high-impact Melbourne brand agency - filming, editing, long and short-form copy, and building content strategies that bring client stories to life.
📍 Melbourne CBD | Hybrid (~3 days in office)
💼 Content marketing background | Full-time
💰 $70,000-$80,000
👉 Apply here: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4451611419/
Jobs from the wider Ecosystem:
💻 Senior Engineer (Pipelines) @ Buildkite
Build and scale the tools developers rely on for CI/CD pipelines at Buildkite, a dev tools company trusted by engineering teams worldwide.
📍 Australia, New Zealand
💼 Engineering | Full-time | Dev tools, developer experience
👉 Apply here: https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/buildkite/jobs/5031519008
Want to see more from Buildkite? https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/buildkite
💻 Analytics Engineer @ Brighte
Design and maintain the dbt/SQL transformations and dimensional models powering self-serve analytics and AI at Brighte, a green finance fintech helping households go solar and electrify.
📍 Sydney, NSW
💼 Data/Analytics engineering | Full-time | Climate, fintech
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/brighte/e608ba39-9212-4496-95cf-ffc04443d9a7/apply
Want to see more from Brighte? https://jobs.lever.co/brighte
🧑💼 Commercial Lawyer @ Lawpath
Practice commercial law inside a legaltech scale-up making legal services accessible and affordable for Australian SMEs.
📍 Surry Hills, NSW
💼 Legal background | Full-time | Legaltech
👉 Apply here: https://lawpath.bamboohr.com/careers/157
Want to see more from Lawpath? https://lawpath.bamboohr.com/careers/list
💻 Senior Software Engineer @ Kasada
Build greenfield fraud and bot-defence detection systems handling billions of requests a day at Kasada, a Sydney cybersecurity company protecting the world's biggest websites from automated attacks.
📍 Sydney | Hybrid
💼 Senior engineering | Full-time | Cybersecurity, bot defence
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/kasada/01a75d0d-a13a-4492-807c-ba72cc91d2af
🧠 VCE Content Creator @ Atomi
Develop VCE video scripts, lessons and assessments at Atomi, an edtech company making high-school study genuinely engaging for Australian students.
📍 Remote (Australia)
💼 Content/curriculum background | Full-time | Edtech
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/atomi/168d8438-e5f0-4c09-bcbd-7beec7d8679f/apply
Want to see more from Atomi? https://jobs.lever.co/atomi
💻 Technical Program Manager, Integrations @ Heidi Health
Coordinate third-party and EMR integrations for Heidi's AI Care Partner, one of the fastest-growing AI medical scribe products in the country.
📍 Melbourne | Hybrid
💼 Product/program management | Full-time | Healthtech, AI
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/heidihealth.com.au/bf0151c8-4ba8-4b3e-aa95-c524a3486e0d
Want to see more from Heidi Health? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/heidihealth.com.au
🧑💼 Account Executive @ Lorikeet
Run the full sales cycle closing new business for Lorikeet's AI customer-support agent, built for companies that trust it with their hardest tickets.
📍 Sydney, Australia HQ
💼 Sales | Full-time | AI customer support
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/lorikeet/fc1e0ba8-723f-45bc-a4d2-6bf696ba9d69
Want to see more from Lorikeet? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/lorikeet
💻 Research Engineer - Matilda @ Maincode
Work hands-on across research and engineering on Matilda, Australia's sovereign large language model, at a Melbourne AI lab doing frontier model work onshore.
📍 Melbourne
💼 Research/engineering | Full-time | Sovereign AI, frontier models
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maincode/2f3504fd-4334-4e2d-9919-d00c18362d7b
Want to see more from Maincode? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maincode
🧑💼 Registry Officer @ Caruso
Process share registry and fund administration operations at Caruso, a fintech rebuilding the share-registry experience for modern companies.
📍 Sydney
💼 Operations | Full-time | Fintech, share registry
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/caruso/13c37948-3e0c-4009-b8d4-d1b4a629ed45
Want to see more from Caruso? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/caruso
💻 Senior Product Engineer (Sydney) @ Workyard
Build and ship product features for Workyard's construction workforce SaaS platform, used by contractors to manage time tracking and job costing in the field.
📍 Sydney
💼 Senior engineering | Full-time | Construction SaaS
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/workyard/b786dee1-1494-43e1-9f5b-597715c1781c
Want to see more from Workyard? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/workyard
💻 Staff Software Engineer @ Dovetail
Take on a senior IC engineering role shaping the core platform behind Dovetail's customer intelligence product, used by product teams worldwide to turn research into insight.
📍 Sydney | Hybrid
💼 Staff-level engineering | Full-time | B2B SaaS, research/AI
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/dovetail/00198431-f2dd-4e36-8916-729f4e569014
Want to see more from Dovetail? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/dovetail
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 🚀