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A few quick things before we get into it:

The founding spots on the AFC Fractional Board are gone - every one!! If you're fractional and still want in, Tier 1 pricing is open (and still cheap!). And if you're a founder after fractional help, browse the profiles here (find testimonials + case studies inside): https://aussiefoundersclub.com/fractional

Also, in our pursuit of building something epic for the fractional community, I’m after a growth partner / cofounder to help scale AFC Fractional - it's in the jobs below!

And one we're a bit excited about (and sorry, not hiring related): our new podcast, Life After Launch, drops next week. First guest is Dom Pym, founder of Up Bank. Follow, subscribe and see who's coming up: www.lifeafterlaunchpod.com

Most companies treat hiring as something that happens to them. A role opens, you write the ad, you run the interviews, you move on. Even in the earliest stages where those hires are so so so critical. The hire could win you or cost you the traction that influences your next raise, win you the next enterprise client etc etc etc. Almost all the effort goes into the process, and almost none goes into the thing that actually decides who applies: whether anyone can tell why working there would be good for them.

That gap is the opportunity. And I believe it can take as little as about a day of real thought about how you approach hiring and growth inside your team to stand out from nearly everyone else (I’m talking both similar stage startups or boring corporates) in the market. Not a rebrand. Not a budget. One day of deciding what you actually offer a person, and being able to say it plainly.

When we rebuilt Kairos’ brand (that went live this week!), the belief underneath it was actually super simple: the best businesses don't talk about recruitment, they talk about what it can do for the company - so we don’t talk about recruitment so much on our website. We don’t say we can find you a Product Manager (but we can, and a bloody good one at that!). And we don’t believe your careers page should talk about recruitment either. Don't talk about someone taking a job. Talk about what the job does for them. The opportunity ahead. The future they’ll be a part of building.

For startups that's an easier story than most founders think. We recently placed someone out of CS*RO into a medtech startup. On paper that reads as a step into more risk. In practice the startup offered more growth, and more salary growth, than the role they were leaving - and once that was the story being told, the conversation wasn't hard.

It's worth borrowing from marketing here. There's a view going around - I heard it on a podcast recently - that if you're tapped into your client market, you don't really need to make noise. Maybe that holds for sales. It doesn't hold once you factor in hiring. You can't lose anything by telling the story of your growth, and the upside is talent. The story that makes an investor lean in, or a customer trust you, is the same story that makes the right person want to join. Founders skip that thinking on the logic that the product moat does the work. It doesn't, at least not here. The person weighing up whether to join doesn't care about your moat the way a customer does. They care what the next two years do for them.

And this part is genuinely new. If you've done the thinking about who you are as an employer, AI is a good way to pressure-test it. Sit down and have it grill you on why someone should join, where your answers go vague, what you're quietly avoiding.

Then build the page, and it can be simple. Map out who you are - mission, vision, then the opportunity of the company. The same case you'd make to an investor, plus a bit about how you actually work. Put a founder on video, because in 2026 people back people. The apply button goes to an email, and you have an agent pulling those emails into Notion or whatever you track in. That's the whole thing. This is 2026 - you don't need to sit and wait on a Seek or LinkedIn ad to do the work for you.

None of this needs a long runway. It needs a day, and the willingness to be specific about what you're offering. That's the standard worth holding yourself to - and worth expecting from whoever you bring in to do it for you (talk to us if you want help!)

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.

The AU startups worth watching:
Alloovium - construction AI that captures every project variation before it's time-barred, winning back the margin builds leak.
NeuralIndex - conversational AI property search that lets buyers find homes by describing them in plain language.
Brainwaves - an always-on AI strategy platform giving brand and creative teams clear direction on tap. (Co-founder Jamie Brownlee is actually an AFC member!)

Jobs from the wider ecosystem, continued below 👇

🛠️ Founding Growth Partner @ AFC Fractional (that’s us!!)
Not a hire - a founding growth partner to scale AFC Fractional, the board where founders find vetted fractional consultants. Supply is already live and paying, demand is ready to ramp, and it sits inside AFC’s existing distribution.
📍 Remote - a few focused hours a week
💼 Growth generalist (SEM, paid, SEO, semi-technical) | Part-time | Revenue split now + co-founder conversations as it grows
👉 Apply here: https://startupopportunities.aussiefoundersclub.com/jobs/8099469-founding-growth-partner

🧑‍💼 Operations Lead @ EdSmart
A generalist superstar to run operations at EdSmart, an Australian EdTech scale-up (Series A) - a maternity-leave cover with real ownership across the business.
📍 Australia - see listing
💼 Operations generalist | 12-month fixed term, 4 days part-time (mat leave cover)
👉 Apply here: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4442962085/

💻 Founding Engineer @ Noldo
Be the first engineer at a Sydney fintech building the next generation of financial research tooling for retail investors - a defining role shaping the platform from day one. Full-stack TypeScript across Node, React, Postgres and Python.
📍 Sydney - Surry Hills
💼 Senior full-stack (TypeScript) | Startup/finance experience a plus | Competitive salary + generous equity
👉 Apply here: https://www.noldo.com/careers/member-of-technical-staff-full-stack/

🤝 Customer Support Lead @ Hark Medical
Own and build the support function at a Melbourne healthtech with 2,000+ SASHA medication-management devices across aged and home care - the first dedicated support hire, bridging product and customer.
📍 Melbourne - hybrid (4 days in Richmond, 1 from home; drivers licence required)
💼 ~2+ years in a similar role | Operational, curious problem-solver | Full-time
💰 Competitive - range shared on a call
👉 Apply here: https://www.harkmedical.com/careers

💻 AI Research Resident @ Maincode
Break into frontier AI on the team building Australia's own sovereign large language model from scratch - a paid residency training and shipping models end to end.
📍 Australia
💼 Early-career AI/ML | Research-focused | Full-time
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maincode/f95bbc0e-fe76-4a88-a9c2-b396e936318b
Want to see more from Maincode? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maincode

🤝 Customer Success Manager @ Lyrebird Health
Keep clinics thriving on Lyrebird's AI medical scribe, already trusted by thousands of Australian clinicians - own onboarding, adoption and retention as the team scales fast.
📍 Melbourne
💼 CSM experience (SaaS/health ideal) | Full-time | Fast-growing scale-up
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.lever.co/lyrebirdhealth/8c54fdcc-0a6c-4217-97dc-fae51f4dc8df
Want to see more from Lyrebird Health? https://jobs.lever.co/lyrebirdhealth

🎯 Creative Strategist @ Everlab
Shape the brand and campaigns behind Everlab's push to make preventive health mainstream - turning complex longevity science into creative that moves people to act.
📍 Melbourne / Sydney - hybrid
💼 Creative/brand strategy | Content-led | Full-time
👉 Apply here: https://careers.everlab.com.au/jobs/7735191-creative-strategist
Want to see more from Everlab? https://careers.everlab.com.au/jobs

🧑‍💼 Member of Business Staff @ Doccy
Operations, recruiting, partnerships and growth in one high-agency seat at a Melbourne telehealth startup working to close the gap in accessible healthcare.
📍 Melbourne
💼 Ops/BD generalist | Early-stage, high autonomy | Full-time
👉 Apply here: https://doccy.com.au/careers/business
Want to see more from Doccy? https://doccy.com.au/careers

🧑‍💼 Head of Finance @ Ignition
Lead finance at the Sydney-born, global platform that automates proposals, billing and payments for accounting and professional-services firms.
📍 Sydney
💼 Senior finance leadership | B2B SaaS | Full-time
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ignition/23a5aef2-cd7a-4805-b8dc-ae66517de70e
Want to see more from Ignition? https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/ignition

💻 Lead Inertial Sensor Engineer - MEMS @ Advanced Navigation
Push the frontier of autonomous navigation, designing MEMS inertial sensors that guide everything from subsea robots to aircraft at one of Australia's deep-tech standouts.
📍 Sydney
💼 MEMS/sensor engineering | Deep tech/hardware | Full-time
👉 Apply here: https://ats.rippling.com/advanced-navigation/jobs/ef6d6518-a829-43ed-a371-ef3f40ada4ec
Want to see more from Advanced Navigation? https://www.advancednavigation.com/careers/

🧑‍💼 Product Manager, Agentic AI @ Checkbox
Own the roadmap for agentic AI that automates legal and compliance work for enterprise teams - shaping how in-house lawyers put AI agents to work.
📍 Sydney
💼 Product management | AI/legaltech | Full-time
👉 Apply here: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/Checkbox%20Technology/53b772aa-a94f-47fe-bfc1-5d1da0d68092
Want to see more from Checkbox? https://checkbox.ai/careers

🎯 Marketing Lead @ Shippit
Drive brand and demand for the shipping platform powering deliveries for thousands of ANZ retailers - a fixed-term brief with real ownership.
📍 Sydney
💼 Marketing leadership | B2B/logistics SaaS | Fixed-term
👉 Apply here: https://shippit.bamboohr.com/careers/131
Want to see more from Shippit? https://www.shippit.com/careers

🌱 Want your roles in the digest automatically? Tell us whether we should pull your roles from - just hit reply with your career page URL! Don’t have a careers page? Talk to us at Kairos about how easy it is to build something that becomes an talent engine!

There's a members space behind this newsletter built for startup talent with a year or more in startups behind them. Inside:

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 🚀