Head of Engineering

Job Description

What you'll do

This role reports directly to the Managing Director and leads a team of circa 20, spanning engineering and data science. You’ll take ownership of scaling a modern, high-performing engineering function, driving both technical excellence and meaningful commercial impact across the business. This is not a typical engineering role the problem space is complex, commercially critical and genuinely interesting. You won’t just be “building CRUD faster” you’ll be solving revenue optimisation challenges that sit at the intersection of theory, experimentation and engineering.

With strong investment and momentum around AI, you’ll play a central role in shaping how it is embedded across the organisation building the platforms, capabilities and culture required to unlock its full potential.

You'll

• Recruiting, mentoring and developing a high-performing engineering and data science team
• Defining and executing an engineering strategy aligned to broader business and technology objectives
• Uplifting existing engineering practices, including CI/CD, cloud architecture and delivery standards, to support an AI-first future
• Owning and evolving the current tech stack (Typescript, Node, Python, React, Google Cloud) to ensure scalability and performance
• Building platform capabilities that enable and accelerate AI adoption across the organisation

Qualifications

What we are looking for:

• Proven experience in a senior engineering leadership role (e.g. Head of Engineering, Director, or Senior Engineering Manager)
• Strong product and customer orientation, with the ability to quickly build domain expertise, particularly in complex environments such as ad-tech
• A hands-on technical leader who is comfortable contributing to the codebase where needed to set standards, guide architecture, or prototype solutions
• Deep understanding of data-driven decision making, ideally with exposure to MLOps and experience productionising data science models

We know not everyone will meet every requirement, and that’s okay. If you’re excited about the role and believe you can make a difference, we’d love to hear from you.

Additional Information

A few other things we want you to know...

• As an equal opportunity employer, Publift welcomes applications from individuals of all backgrounds, identities, abilities, and life experiences. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and supported
• If you have a disability or require adjustments to participate fully in the recruitment process, please let us know—we’re here to support you.
• We understand the importance of work-life balance and offer flexible working arrangements, including part-time options. If you’d like to explore this, just ask during the process.
• We’re also a proud Circle Back Initiative employer, which means we commit to responding to every applicant.
• Successful candidates joining the team will need to complete a National Police Record check and must have full-time Australian working rights.

So come and join us because every role contributes something meaningful as we embark on this exciting journey of growth and innovation.