Dev Talent Spotlight | March '26

+ First, talk to customers. Then write code.

Author

Lisa Deng
March 10, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

🌟 Featured Developer

Senior Full Stack Developer with a focus on AI/ML integrations
⏳ 5-7 years
📍 Adelaide (Open to relocating), Remote
🥞 TypeScript, Python, Swift
💵 $180k p/a or $120 p/h
✅ Salary negotiable for equity
A full-stack engineer who discovered a critical Chrome vulnerability impacting 5M+ devices and founded an AI/ML traffic management solution. Led engineering teams at multiple startups spanning dating tech, health tech, and productivity software, while gaining Big Four consulting experience.

Seeking a product ownership role building impactful technology from the ground up with clear equity or salary compensation path.
Vouched for by
Nonso Umar
Principal Director @ Medallion Technologies
"This developer is reliable and takes ownership of their work, often going above and beyond to ensure project goals are met."

 Know a founder looking for a CTO or founding engineer?

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Founder Success Stories

'If I'm Not Going to Be a Lawyer for the Rest of My Life, I'm Not Going to Do It for a Day – Luca’s founder story

From law student to startup founder — how a trip to India, a couch-moment idea, and a
"
"My grandfather has a quote: 'I felt bad for myself because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.' That's something I've always lived by."
— Luca Waterstone, Founder, COMN (formerly COMN GRND)

At 23, Luca Waterstone left law to build COMN—a fitness and wellness marketplace—with no technical background, no funding, and no experience. If you're a non-technical founder wondering how to turn an idea into reality, this story is for you.

Luca shares hard-won lessons from his first year building, including pivoting before writing code, avoiding the dark-room product trap, and finding his founding engineer through smart hiring.

Key takeaways:

  • How to build a tech product as a non-technical founder
  • Finding and working with your first technical hire—from vetting to building a strong relationship
  • Why customer research saved him from building the wrong thing

Perfect for founders navigating the messy early stages—especially if you're building solo and wondering how to take the next step.

Read more


 Find out if you’re eligible to get cash back on development costs

You can still claim for last financial year until the end of March!

Get advice from a R&D tax specialist on if you’re eligible for R&D tax incentive, the application process, how long it’ll take and how much money you could get back.

Book using the link below to get $200 off your first invoice
(p.s You only get invoiced after you receive your grant money from the government 🙌).

🗓️ Other Notable Profiles

Senior Full-stack Software Engineer
👨‍💼 7+ years
🏠 Sydney, Remote
💻 TypeScript, Go, Kotlin
🤑 $180k p/a or $130 p/h
✅ Salary negotiable for equity
Built high-performance API infrastructure serving 100K+ QPS for hundreds of millions of users at 99.99% uptime. Full-stack founder-minded engineer who ships products fast and takes ownership.
Lisa Deng
Vouched for by
Lisa Deng
Product Designer | Founder of SkillsRobin

CTO
👨‍💼 7+ years
🏠 Sydney, Remote
💻 TypeScript, Ruby on Rails, Next.js
🤑 $230k p/a or $160 p/h
✅ Salary negotiable for equity
Built teams delivering 20 products in 18 months. Scaled Afterpay's API handling 13M requests with zero downtime. Expert at taking startups from day zero through Series-A fundraising.
Shelby Clark
Vouched for by
Shelby Clark
Founder CEO of Oz Green Oasis

Full-Stack Engineer
👨‍💼 7+ years
🏠 Sydney, Remote
💻 React/Next.js, TypeScript, Node
🤑 $130k p/a or $100 p/h
✅ Salary negotiable for equity
Built 20+ responsive widgets for enterprise banking platforms and led full-stack teams. Proven track record improving performance, scaling architecture, and mentoring engineers in fintech and agencies.
Mohsen Khodadadi
Vouched for by
Mohsen Khodadadi
Senior Android Engineer

Applied Data Scientist / Technical Generalist
👨‍💼 2-5 years
🏠 Melbourne, Remote
💻 Python, Shell/Bash, R
🤑 $110k p/a or $60 p/h
✅ Salary negotiable for equity
Built computer vision system that outperformed traditional analysis methods and published in Langmuir. Former workshop manager turned ML specialist who transforms messy scientific data into production systems.
Joe Berry
Vouched for by
Joe Berry
ARC Future Fellow, Chemical Engineering @ The University of Melbourne

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New Job Opportunities

Permanent, Full-time Roles

📍 Sydney CBD
💵 $150-180k + equity
⏳  Full-time

A fast-growing Sydney startup transforming how leading retail brands manage visual merchandising — helping store teams design, execute, and optimise product placement at scale. Join as a Senior Full Stack Engineer with real ownership across the entire product — you'll build meaningful features end-to-end (TypeScript, React.js, Next.js, Node.js, AWS), collaborate closely with product and design, and see your work directly impact how hundreds of retail stores perform.

📍 Sydney Preferred, Remote
💵 Equity-based
⏳ Part-time, Join as co-founder

Join as the technical co-founder of an early-stage startup developing a first-of-its-kind digital marketplace for recruiter-qualified, de-identified contingent talent—creating fairer, faster, bias-free hiring pathways. Currently pre-MVP and preparing to build a prototype, pilot with major employers, and raise the first investment round.

Looking to hire?

Post your role with SkillsRobin to receive personalised referrals from our network of trusted tech professionals.

Looking for a dev job or side-hustle?

Create a profile on SkillsRobin and get invitations to connect from startup founders and hiring managers.

About SkillsRobin

SkillsRobin is an open-source employee referral program that connects startups with pre-vetted technical talent through trusted industry referrers.

Our fees are simple and founder-friendly:

  • No upfront costs - you only pay when you hire

  • $500 for part-time hires, $4000 for full-time hires - only pay once they join your team

  • 6-month guarantee - additional fee of the same amount only if hire stays 6+ months

  • Up to 8x cheaper than an external recruiter

Candidates are developers based in ANZ, interested in working with early stage startups and come with referrals from industry professionals, saving you time in the initial screening process.

Offers

  • Get up to 43.5% of your research and development spending as a cash refund. If your research and development involves taking on technical risk, the R&D tax incentive could be an ongoing source of funding for your startup. Contact Grant Help and get $200 off your first invoice when you book through this link: https://hs.granthelp.com.au/rdti-eoi-skillsrobin

  • Work 3x faster - Translate speech to text with 95% accuracy with Wispr Flow. No need to stop to fix up punctuation. Get one month free of pro using this referral link 

  • Get 10% Google Workplace for the first year when you sign up through this link https://referworkspace.app.goo.gl/9kwf

Email Still Wins. Here's How to Use It Better.

59% of Americans say most marketing emails offer no real value. That's not a threat, it's an opening. Get the AI-powered playbook for building email campaigns that actually convert.

Inside you'll discover:

  • How top brands achieve 3,600% ROI from email marketing

  • AI personalization techniques that drive 82% higher conversion rates

  • Tactics that have delivered 30% better open rates and 50% higher clickthroughs

  • How to build sequences for every stage of the customer journey, from welcome to re-engagement

Know a founder looking for a CTO or founding engineer?

Forward this newsletter and speed up their search

Questions about any of these profiles or our process? Reply to this email ([email protected]) or visit our website