Reporting to the VP of Engineering, the R&D Lead is a new, staff-level engineering role dedicated entirely to forward-looking technical discovery, agentic workflow research, and landscape intelligence. This is a maker and researcher role, not an operational or managerial one.
As the founding member of our R&D function, you will tackle the "hard problems" on our roadmap, providing the technical proof-of-concepts that will define our future product offerings. You are physically embedded in our APAC team to stay close to the AI Governance and Risk Intelligence domains—the primary consumers of your research output. In this role, you aren't just building features; you are defining the technical bedrock of a new category.
Key Responsibilities
Structured Discovery: Lead six-week R&D cycles to produce prototypes and recommendations for known hard problems.
Technical Validation: Utilize Go, Java, Node.js, TypeScript, and React to build high-fidelity prototypes that determine if a concept should be discontinued, explored further, or transferred to delivery teams.
Agent & Agentic Workflow R&D (Thread 2)Agentic Security: Partner with our Content Team to convert security domain expertise into agent-consumable formats like MCP tools, system prompts, or agent configurations.
Governance & Observability: Research and define patterns for governing autonomous agents that write, test, and deploy code, ensuring provenance tracking in multi-agent environments.
Landscape & Workflow Intelligence (Thread 3)Technical Scanning: Track academic research on AI safety, secure code generation, and emerging IDE paradigms to keep the product roadmap pointed at where the market is heading.
Intelligence Outputs: Publish regular reports, including a monthly Developer Workflow Pulse and a quarterly Landscape Brief covering competitive moves and technology trends.
Strategic Collaboration & External EngagementCross-Functional Pairing: Operate with priorities set by product and engineering senior leadership.
Thought Leadership: Represent the company at major conferences (RSA, Black Hat, AI Engineering conferences) and contribute to industry credibility by publishing benchmarks and research.
Who You Are
Staff-Level Maker: You are a seasoned engineer (Staff level) with 8+ years of experience and a track record of solving "blank page" architectural problems.
Polyglot Prototyper: You possess a strong foundation in computer science with the ability to prototype rapidly in our tech stacks.
AI/LLM Specialist: You are highly conversant in agent frameworks, the evolving MCP ecosystem, and the current state of LLM research.
Analytical Researcher: You possess the writing skills to translate complex technical findings into actionable strategic intelligence for leadership and product teams.
Pragmatic Visionary: You are a role model for the Warrior Code and Engineering Culture Code, demonstrating a "safe pair of hands" even when operating in highly experimental, cloud-native (Kubernetes/IaC) environments.
Why Join Us?
Define the Category: You will be the founding member of a function that defines the "AI Software Governance" category, creating the benchmarks the rest of the industry will follow.
Pure Innovation: This is a dedicated maker role. You are shielded from day-to-day operational delivery to focus 100% on discovery and forward-looking R&D.
Strategic Influence: Your prototypes directly inform the product roadmap and content strategy, impacting the core control plane of the company.
Top Skills
Secure Code Warrior Sydney, New South Wales, AUS Office
29-43 Balfour St, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2008
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