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- Dev Talent Spotlight | 2 September '25
Dev Talent Spotlight | 2 September '25
+ advice from the founder of Lorikeet.ai - now valued at 200M+
Lisa Deng
September 02, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
🌟 Featured Developer
⏳ 10+ years experience
🏠 Brisbane, Remote
💻 C#, Typescript, Rust, C++, Python, C
💵 $200,000 p/a | $175 p/h
✅ Pay negotiable in exchange for equity
“I am an experienced dev who no longer considers himself an artist. I've seen enough to realise that getting finished, even when they're a bit ugly, is better than not finishing them... I have a talent for putting people together in a way that works."
 | Vouched for by |
Founder Success Stories: 🚀 From first hire to 200M valuation in under 24 months
SkillsRobin introduced us to high quality, diverse engineering candidates with relevant technical and startup experience. Pre-vetting of candidates saved us time in initial calls and made us more confident moving them down the recruitment pipeline. SkillsRobin were easy to work with, and provided tremendous value compared to working with recruiting agencies or doing open-call online posting.
Lorikeet.ai just raised their $54M series A in August, doubling their valuation to $200M+ only 6 months after their $14M raise. The AI “concierge service” now powers complex customer service tasks for the likes of Linktree, Eucalyptus and Airwallex.
SkillsRobin connected Lorikeet with their very first engineering hire after their pre-seed - and we couldn't be prouder to have played the tiniest part in this incredible journey. Co-founder Steve Hind shared three pieces of standout advice that helped drive their success:
✅ Test real value by asking customers to pay "uncomfortably" high amounts early
✅ Develop a clear hypothesis for attracting top talent when you're unknown
✅ Job seekers: Optimise for joining winning companies above title, salary, or perks
🗓️ Other notable profiles
⏳ 4 years experience | “I'm quite proud of doing the revamp of both NBNs and MYOBs public websites from the visual changes down to the change of CMS for MYOB.” |
 | Vouched for by |
⏳ 5-7 years experience | Interested in part-time android development work |
 | Vouched for by |
⏳ Less than 1 year | “I've built an award-winning full-stack online investment portfolio tracker, utilising my expertise from my computer science and business degrees that is well-received by the community around me.” |
 | Vouched for by |
Open roles
Founding engineer - AI Infrastructure Startup
💵 Equity-based to start
Join an AI-driven infrastructure intelligence startup at day zero as they revolutionise datacenter planning and optimisation across APAC. You'll work directly with the founder to build their MVP from scratch - architecting core systems for AI-powered site selection, infrastructure intelligence, and ESG optimization. Perfect for ambitious builders excited by 0→1 challenges, deep tech, and making infrastructure smarter and more sustainable
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, $2,000 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
10-20x cheaper than traditional recruiting agencies
25% discount on all fees for early, bootstrapping startups (<A$100,000 in funding raised or ARR < $100,000)
All 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.
Know a founder looking for a CTO or founding engineer?
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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. |
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Questions about any of these profiles or our process? Reply to this email ([email protected]) or visit our website