Founding Principal Software Engineer
Founding Principal Software Engineer
Contract Type:
Full Time
Location:
Sydney
Industry:
IT & Telecomms
Contact Name:
Sam Elderfield
Contact Email:
sam@scaleuprecruitment.com.au
Contact Phone:
0468591683
Date Published:
02-Jul-2025
This will be the most rewarding and challenging role of your career.
Founding Principal Software Engineer.
It's a big title with big responsibilities and a huge impact.
You're either a startup tragic who's held either title in the past or been a tech lead (or similar) at an established startup or scaleup and looking to take the next step in being that first critical hire.
Here's a bit more about the business:
A scaling investment startup is building a customised technology platform enabling their investors to easily access their assets for portfolio knowledge, acquisition and monitoring. They have doubled in size (assets under management, revenue and customer acquisition) over the past 6 months and are looking to continue this growth exponentially.
Scaleup is helping them attract a Founding Principal Software Engineer to play a pivotal role in the development of its core investment platform.
Working closely with the CTO and founding team, you will contribute to architecting scalable systems, driving technical excellence, providing guidance on technical decision making, developing their core platform and mentoring junior engineers (in the future).
The role involves working across the full stack, utilising Java, Spring Boot, modern front-end with vanilla JavaScript, AWS, and MySQL to build and optimise a platform handling large-scale data processing and real-time transactions.
As the business grows, particularly over the upcoming years. The potential for this role to grow is huge, either continue as an IC or Technical Team lead/Manager, depending on your path.
On a day-to-day basis, you will be developing and maintaining the company’s core investment platform. Influencing system architecture, transitioning from monolithic to microservices-based solutions.
Optimise performance and security, ensuring scalable database management and adhering to best practices for AWS cloud infrastructure.
Collaborate closely with the leadership team, contributing to technical decision-making and long-term platform strategy.
Your natural curiosity will be vital as you will be solving business problems in a fast-paced startup environment.
Why Join?
Not many opportunities like this come up; you will be joining a very promising startup at a very early stage. They have strong revenue and a solid client base already, with expansion internationally on the cards very soon.
The company offers:
Have the skills to pay to bills? Apply now or reach out directly to sam@scaleuprecruitment.com.au
ScaleUp has been partnering with technology businesses since 2022. We thrive on scaling technology teams that solve business problems. We believe connecting people with an ethos and mindset to stimulate a cohesive engineering culture is the best way to do this.
Sam Elderfield has been applying the same high level of commitment to scaling technology teams throughout his 15-year career in technology recruitment. As a co-founder of ScaleUp Recruitment, he loves identifying and attracting the right people to help solve your business problems, helping your business scale and exceed the results you are looking for.
Founding Principal Software Engineer.
It's a big title with big responsibilities and a huge impact.
You're either a startup tragic who's held either title in the past or been a tech lead (or similar) at an established startup or scaleup and looking to take the next step in being that first critical hire.
Here's a bit more about the business:
A scaling investment startup is building a customised technology platform enabling their investors to easily access their assets for portfolio knowledge, acquisition and monitoring. They have doubled in size (assets under management, revenue and customer acquisition) over the past 6 months and are looking to continue this growth exponentially.
Scaleup is helping them attract a Founding Principal Software Engineer to play a pivotal role in the development of its core investment platform.
Working closely with the CTO and founding team, you will contribute to architecting scalable systems, driving technical excellence, providing guidance on technical decision making, developing their core platform and mentoring junior engineers (in the future).
The role involves working across the full stack, utilising Java, Spring Boot, modern front-end with vanilla JavaScript, AWS, and MySQL to build and optimise a platform handling large-scale data processing and real-time transactions.
As the business grows, particularly over the upcoming years. The potential for this role to grow is huge, either continue as an IC or Technical Team lead/Manager, depending on your path.
On a day-to-day basis, you will be developing and maintaining the company’s core investment platform. Influencing system architecture, transitioning from monolithic to microservices-based solutions.
Optimise performance and security, ensuring scalable database management and adhering to best practices for AWS cloud infrastructure.
Collaborate closely with the leadership team, contributing to technical decision-making and long-term platform strategy.
Your natural curiosity will be vital as you will be solving business problems in a fast-paced startup environment.
- 10+ years of professional experience as a software engineer
- You NEED to be VERY good with Java (CORE Java - fundamentals, concurrency, multithreading, data structures etc.)
- Be very good with Databases and have extensive experience with MySQL or other relational databases (query optimisation, indexing).
- Good knowledge of AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS, API Gateway, CloudWatch, etc.).
- Proficiency in front-end technologies (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and modern frameworks) - from a UI security perspective, you don't need to be an expert in this.
- Strong problem-solving abilities and technical decision-making skills
- A passion for building from the ground up, particularly in a startup environment.
- A mindset for high-performance engineering and getting sh*t done.
- Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering or Computer Science etc.
- AWS Associate certification or working experience that is equivalent to
Why Join?
Not many opportunities like this come up; you will be joining a very promising startup at a very early stage. They have strong revenue and a solid client base already, with expansion internationally on the cards very soon.
The company offers:
- Top of the market salary Up to $250 - $300 base + super + options
- Cutting-Edge Tech Stack working on an (almost) greenfield application, loads of new feature development
- Hybrid working environment: with a modern city-based office near Wynyard (you will need to be based in or around Sydney to come into the office a couple of days a week
- You will need to have full working rights, be an AU citizen or PR etc.
- Autonomy & Ownership: The ability to make impactful technical decisions.
- Collaborative Culture: Work alongside industry experts, founders, and investors.
- A Role with Purpose: Shape the future of fintech and investment technology.
Have the skills to pay to bills? Apply now or reach out directly to sam@scaleuprecruitment.com.au
ScaleUp has been partnering with technology businesses since 2022. We thrive on scaling technology teams that solve business problems. We believe connecting people with an ethos and mindset to stimulate a cohesive engineering culture is the best way to do this.
Sam Elderfield has been applying the same high level of commitment to scaling technology teams throughout his 15-year career in technology recruitment. As a co-founder of ScaleUp Recruitment, he loves identifying and attracting the right people to help solve your business problems, helping your business scale and exceed the results you are looking for.
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