Head of Engineering

We're the construction planning platform replacing outdated spreadsheets with multiplayer tools that delivery teams love. Major contractors like Acciona, CPB Contractors, John Holland, and McConnell Dowell use Aphex to deliver projects from $50 million to multi-billion dollar mega projects.
We're market-leading in Australia and the UK, supporting teams building the roads, rail, tunnels, and hospitals that millions use every day. We're tackling an industry that drives 10% of global GDP yet has seen productivity decline for 20 years.

The role

We're looking for a Head of Engineering to partner with our CTO and tech leads in scaling from 20 to 40+ developers. This isn't a pure management role - you'll spend 30-40% of your time in the codebase while building the operational foundations for great engineering at scale.
You're a senior developer who happens to be great at the people and process side. You understand the magic in our codebase because you're in it regularly.

Stay Technical (30-40%)

• Review PRs, pair on complex problems, contribute to critical features

• Partner with our CTO on technical vision and architecture

• Maintain deep technical credibility through regular code contributions

Team Growth

• Partner with our CTO and 5 tech leads to help them grow as leaders

• Own performance reviews, goal setting, and compensation

• Design career frameworks from junior to senior to lead

• Drive recruitment - you'll be in the technical interviews

• Create onboarding that gets engineers productive quickly

Operational Excellence

• Establish processes that enable autonomy without sacrificing alignment

• Track engineering metrics in service of outcomes, not bureaucracy

• Partner with Product to align capacity with priorities

• Own tooling decisions and remove obstacles

Culture & Communication

• Protect our engineering culture of ownership, quality, and collaboration

• Keep our remote-first Philippines-based team connected and aligned

• Champion engineering needs at the management level

Essential:

• You still see yourself as a developer - you miss the code when away from it too long

• 8+ years development experience, 2+ years leading engineering operations

• Track record scaling teams (20-100 developers) while keeping quality high

• Deep fluency with modern development (React, TypeScript, Node.js, serverless, GCP)

• Experience building performance management that actually helps engineers grow

• Solid async communication for distributed teams

Highly valued:

• Founding engineer or early hire who grew into management

• Remote-first or distributed team experience

• Track record improving velocity without compromising quality

Not looking for:

• Pure people managers who haven't written production code in years

• Someone who wants to hire managers and stay out of technical details

• Someone who values process over outcomes

Why this matters

We need someone who can scale our team while staying close enough to know if we're building the right things, the right way. Someone our CTO can bounce technical ideas off, not just report metrics to. Someone who earns respect through technical credibility, not org chart position.
If you still get excited about elegant solutions to hard problems - and genuinely enjoy helping engineers grow - let's talk.

Work & Culture:

• Remote-first role working with our Melbourne based CTO and thriving Philippines-based engineering team (20+ and growing)

• Flexible working hours with async collaboration

• Join a team that takes ownership, focuses on quality, and genuinely enjoys solving hard problems together

Team Connection:

• 2x Annual Team Offsites - all expenses paid adventures to connect in person: May 2025: Our entire Aphex team (40+) spent a week in Da Nang, Vietnam
  October 2025: Our dev team (20+) gathered in Siquijor, Philippines

• Monthly online socials with Airwallex card for team lunches and activities

Tech & Growth:

• Macbook pro

• Ongoing learning and training opportunities, including a training allowance Aphex covers