Senior PHP Developer – Build & Modernise a Scaling Platform

Join a growing tech business at a key transformation point - where speed, automation, and modernisation are the focus.

You’ll work closely with the CTO, founders, and a small engineering team to ship new features, improve existing systems, and help drive a migration from legacy PHP (CakePHP) to a modern framework like Laravel or Symfony.

This is a hands-on role with real impact—ideal for someone who enjoys solving problems, working at pace, and contributing to technical direction.

What you’ll do:

• Build and deliver new features across a PHP/React stack

• Contribute to system modernisation and migration

• Help improve engineering efficiency using AI tools

• Work closely with product and leadership to ship quickly

What we’re looking for:

• Strong PHP experience (Laravel/Symfony ideal)

• Experience working with or modernising legacy systems

• Exposure to React or modern frontend frameworks

• Someone reliable, proactive, and delivery-focused

• Interest in AI tools and improving developer productivity

Why join:

• High-impact role in a scaling business

• Work directly with founders and decision-makers

• Real ownership and influence on technical direction

• Hybrid working + great office perks (gym, pool, food culture) 

If you’re looking for a role where you can build, influence, and move fast—this is it. Reach out to reema@theonset.com.au for more details.

Join a fast‑moving media & technology group where legal isn’t a back‑office function- it’s a strategic partner. This is a hands‑on commercial role for a solicitor who loves contracts, thrives in a collaborative environment, and wants real ownership across a global business.

What You’ll Do

You’ll be the go‑to legal partner for all things commercial contracting across Australia and the wider Group. Your work will directly support the Group CEO and the Commercial leadership team.

• Draft, review, and negotiate a wide range of commercial agreements — NDAs, DPAs, supplier contracts, SaaS licence agreements, and contract variations.
• Act as the primary legal contact for commercial teams, supporting sales and revenue functions with clear, practical advice.
• Review RFP and tender documentation, collaborating closely with the CRO and commercial stakeholders.
• Engage directly with client legal teams to resolve contractual issues and negotiate points of dispute.
• Prepare executive summaries of key risks and commercial considerations using Salesforce.
• Maintain and improve legal templates, processes, and playbooks, ensuring consistency and compliance across the business.
• Manage supplier agreements and maintain the supplier matrix.
• Support compliance initiatives, including ISO accreditation, data protection reviews, and global regulatory updates.
• Partner with external counsel on specialised matters.
• Contribute to legal enablement, helping commercial teams understand contractual processes and best practices.
• Work on ad‑hoc legal projects, research, and company‑wide legislative updates.

What We’re Looking For

This role suits a solicitor who enjoys commercial contracting and wants to build a career in-house within a SaaS‑driven environment.

• 3+ years’ experience in commercial contracting, ideally within SaaS or a tech‑adjacent industry.
• Australian legal training or qualification (or equivalent experience with strong knowledge of the Australian legal landscape).
• In‑house or top‑tier/mid‑tier law firm experience, with exposure to fast‑paced environments.
• Experience reviewing SaaS agreements, G‑Cloud frameworks, or similar commercial structures.
• Strong negotiation skills and the ability to communicate clearly with both legal and non‑legal stakeholders.
• Excellent organisational skills and the ability to manage competing priorities.
• A proactive, solutions‑focused mindset — someone who takes initiative and enjoys improving processes.
• Energy, engagement, and genuine enthusiasm for the work. (This is a big one — the team values attitude as much as technical skill.)
• The ability to work independently as an individual contributor, while collaborating closely with senior leadership.

Why You’ll Love It

• A genuine pathway to Legal Counsel for the right performer - not guaranteed, but absolutely possible.
• Hybrid working (2–3 days in the office) in a diverse, friendly, and non‑bureaucratic culture.
• A business that values speed, clarity, and collaboration — no layers of hierarchy or gatekeeping.
• A role that blends commercial, operational, and compliance work — perfect for someone who wants breadth.

Sounds like your next role? Apply now or contact Karen at Karen@theonset.com.au 

Shhh... Can You Keep a Secret?

Specialist Helpdesk / Technician – Windows 10/11 Support

📍 Brisbane CBD | ⏳ 12-Month Contract | 🔐 NV1 Clearance Required

Are you ready to take your tech support skills to the next level in a secure and highly respected environment? We’re looking for a Helpdesk/Support Technician to join the Brisbane-based IT team of a globally renowned organisation working at Secret and later Top Secret levels of security clearance.

🔑 Key Details

• Initial 12-month contract, with strong potential for extension or permanent employment.

• Brisbane CBD location.

• NV1 Australian Government Security Clearance required – Only open to Australian Citizens due to the nature of the role and have current active security clearance - NV1/NV2.

🚀 About the Role

As a key part of the helpdesk team, you’ll troubleshoot moderately complex systems within a Windows 10/11 desktop environment, assist with configuration management, and escalate issues to vendors when necessary.

You’ll ensure IT operations meet compliance standards, maintain documentation in line with policies, and respond to tasks via the IT Service Desk.

👤 About You

We’re looking for someone who brings a mix of technical know-how and great communication skills. You’ll ideally have:

• 2–3+ years' experience in PC support (Windows 10/11).

• Experience supporting networked PCs and Windows-based applications.

• Familiarity with PC hardware and peripheral devices.

• Exposure to Windows 11 is a bonus.

• Certificate-level IT qualifications and 4+ years of related experience (or equivalent).

• Strong communication skills and ability to work independently.

• Eligibility to maintain NV1 security clearance.

• A driver’s licence and willingness to travel to remote sites if needed.

• Flexibility to assist with after-hours or on-call duties if required.

🌟 Why This Role?

Not only is this a fantastic opportunity to work in a secure, high-trust environment, but holding NV1 clearance also opens doors to a wide range of future roles. You’ll also have the chance to transition into a permanent position over time.

Interested?
Reach out to Steven at 📧 steven@theonset.com.au to find out more or apply now.

Sshh! Can You Keep a SECRET?

Specialist Helpdesk / Technician | Windows 10/11
📍 Williamtown, NSW
📅 12 Month Contract (Potential to Extend)
🔒 NV1 Clearance Required

Ready to put your tech skills to work... under wraps?

Join a globally respected private organisation supporting an Australian Government operation. This is your chance to work behind the scenes—literally—with a team that operates at SECRET and TOP SECRET clearance levels.

Why this role?

• Long-term career potential: Start on contract, with future opportunities for permanency.
• Security-cleared? You’re already in rare company—this role opens doors to future opportunities.
• Work on impactful projects with real-world importance.

What you’ll be doing

• Provide IT support and troubleshoot moderately complex delivery systems or network issues.
• Escalate and coordinate with vendors on hardware or networking problems.
• Assist with configuration management of basic computing delivery systems.
• Ensure documentation is kept up to date and aligned with policies and procedures.
• Respond to service desk tasks and support tickets in a timely, professional manner.
• Ensure IT operations meet industry standards and compliance requirements.

What we’re looking for

✔ 3+ years' experience in PC support, specifically Windows 10/11 environments
✔ Strong understanding of networked PCs and peripherals
✔ Excellent communication and troubleshooting skills
✔ Certificate-level IT qualifications (and ideally 4+ years' relevant experience)
✔ Ability to work independently, take initiative, and follow through
✔ NV1 clearance (Australian Citizens only)
✔ Willingness to travel to remote sites as needed, and occasionally work out-of-hours/on-call
✔ Valid driver’s license

Bonus points if you

• Have experience in secure environments
• Thrive in fast-paced, high-trust teams
• Love tech but also like keeping things hush-hush

🎯 Interested? Apply online or reach out to Steven at steven@theonset.com.au.

Top-secret tech support isn’t for everyone. But if you’ve got the clearance, we’ve got the opportunity.

#LI-AL1

If you enjoy being in a highly specific, locked down IR role where your tasks are narrowly defined, this probably isn’t the right role for you.

You don’t need to be super senior, but if you’re independent, don’t rely heavily on third-party services, take ownership, and don’t always fall back on escalation points, this could be a great fit.

You’ll work within an internal Defence team, giving you the freedom to lead investigations end-to-end. You’ll be part of a single, unified team that covers both engineering and the full incident response lifecycle — from detection and proactive threat hunting to forensics, root cause analysis, remediation, and continuous improvement of playbooks and processes.

You’ll gain hands-on experience with a wide range of incidents not always seen in corporate settings: ransomware, keyloggers, and APT activity, all in an environment where the team manages the controls directly. You’ll have the opportunity to drive meaningful changes and update processes, and playbooks without the usual bureaucracy.

Proactive hunting and offensive thinking are highly valued, leveraging threat intelligence to identify patterns, anticipate threats, and improve defence mechanisms.

If your IR skills are solid but need some rounding out, that's ok, but strong forensic capabilities and the ability to analyse OS artefacts and evidence are essential for this role.

Russell@theonset.com.au / 0438984265

We are building a new Information Security program, and you will be the first Detection and Response Engineer. This is a hands-on role where you will design and implement detection capabilities from the ground up, focusing on proactive threat identification, automated response, and intelligence driven security operations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Conduct a focused threat modelling exercise to identify key risks and gaps, including additional log sources required for the SIEM rollout and AI system monitoring.
• Develop and maintain detections using a Detection-as-Code approach, iterating based on threat modelling outcomes and emerging threat intelligence.
• Design, implement, and optimise automated triage and investigation playbooks to accelerate response times.
• Integrate threat intelligence feeds into the SIEM and a dedicated AI agent for enriched detection and context.
• Conduct priority threat hunting exercises targeting the highest risk areas of the environment.
• Collaborate with SOC, IT, and engineering teams to ensure logs, alerts, and detection rules are actionable and effective.
• Document and communicate findings, detections, and lessons learned to inform broader security strategy.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Hands-on experience in detection engineering & threat hunting
• Strong familiarity with SIEM platforms, log ingestion, and analytics.
• Experience with Detection-as-Code methodologies
• Understanding of threat modelling and risk-based detection prioritisation.

Senior Backend Engineer (Python & AWS)

North Sydney | Hybrid (3 days in office)

This isn’t a role for someone who just wants to ship tickets.

It’s for an engineer who wants to shape architecture, modernise a real platform, and influence technical direction inside a profitable, globally operating data business.

The company operates at  serious scale, processing and resolving large volumes of identity and data signals used by major international organisations. They are stable, growing (40%+ revenue growth over the past two years), and backed by long-term enterprise contracts.

Now they’re ready to uplift their platform for its next phase.

What You’ll Love About Working Here

1. Genuine Architectural Influence
You’ll act as a 2IC to the Head of Technology. Your thinking will shape direction not just implementation.

2. Real Scale (Not Resume Scale)
Large datasets. Performance-sensitive systems. Complex resolution logic.
You’ll solve meaningful engineering problems, not UI tweaks.

3. Modernisation with Backing
There’s technical debt  and full leadership buy-in to fix it properly.

4. Stability Without Bureaucracy
Profitable. Long-tenured team. Flat structure.
No corporate red tape but strong standards and ISO discipline.

5. Ownership Over Noise
You won’t be one of 200 engineers.
You’ll be one of a small, high-trust team.

What You’ll Get From This Role

• End-to-end ownership of backend architecture decisions

• Exposure to large-scale AWS system design

• The opportunity to uplift engineering standards

• Influence over roadmap and prioritisation

• A stable environment where your work compounds over time

If you want to look back in three years and say,
“I built that platform properly” - this is that role.

What You Need to Have Already Done

This is not a stretch role.

To be successful here, you will likely have:

• 6–10 years backend engineering experience

• Designed and built production systems in AWS

• Strong Python expertise (Django/Flask or similar)

• Worked on systems handling meaningful data scale

• Made architectural decisions not just implemented them

• Improved performance, security, or scalability of legacy systems

• Influenced stakeholders and extracted unclear requirements

You must be able to:

• Think architecturally first

• Communicate with gravitas

• Operate without ego in a flat structure

• Prioritise effectively when everything feels important

Environment

• AWS cloud-native

• Python backend

• Snowflake and large-scale data querying

• Hybrid (Mon, Tues, Fri in North Sydney - weekly team lunches)

• Strong culture, many team members have worked together 10-15+ years

• Investment in learning and conferences

This role suits someone who wants impact over title.Ownership over hierarchy. And long-term influence over short-term noise.

If this sounds like you then apply here or share your resume to Dani - danielle@theonset.com.au

Let Onset provide you with a platform to lead, grow, and make your mark in the new world of recruitment. 

📍 Surry Hills, Sydney (a stone’s throw away from Central Station!)

We’re The Onset - a specialist recruitment agency trusted by Australia’s leading tech, product, and digital teams to build the future. From enterprise giants to VC-backed startups, we partner with the brands shaping the landscape and the talent making it happen.

Whether your domain is in technology, go-to-market, executive, or another professional vertical in legal, accounting, supply chain, or logistics - if you’re a high performer, we want to hear from you.

You’ve already proven yourself. Here’s what you get to own:

 A vertical and/or industry sector to make your own – Full ownership, with the backing of a respected brand, killer marketing, and real delivery support.
Strategic relationships – Work with decision-makers who trust your expertise, not just your CV flicks.
A performance runway – Access to our existing client base and freedom to open new ones.
A space to experiment and lead – Run your own race with the systems, support and leadership to help you achieve your goals. Just big ideas and the backing to run with them. 

What’s different about us?

We’re not an agency that talks about “being different” and then acts the same.

Here’s what people actually stay for:

• A high-performance, low-ego team (many with 5-10+ years in the game)

• Tailored growth - whether you want to lead a team or deepen your niche

• Regular knowledge-sharing with founders, advisors, and big-name clients

• Market-leading tools, AI systems, and a delivery, marketing and research team so you can spend more time where it counts

• WFH days, and real work-life balance

• Industry-leading commission and incentives (seriously, ask us about the numbers)

You’ll fit right in if you:

• Have 2+ years of 360 recruitment experience (ideally in Australia)

• Know your niche (tech or industry) and what is needed to make it your own

• Want to be trusted to do great work, not told how to do your job

• Are looking for real influence as a market expert

• Value culture, outcomes, and long-term impact

• You’re a good human who always has others in mind is 

This isn’t for everyone.

However…. if you’re serious about your career, want to surround yourself with top performers, shape the future of your market and learn and earn, then come join the team. 

Apply here or email contact@theonset.com.au for a confidential chat. Let’s just start the conversation.

Senior AI Engineer (AI-Facing Systems)

Join and immediately contribute to a high calibre growing AI team building real, production-grade AI systems.

Principal Engineer  

Lead the technology that moves a nation.

Sydney | Hybrid - 2 days Office 

Every day, millions of Australians rely on this business to keep life moving.
Behind every on-time order, every seamless delivery, and every moment of connection - there’s technology designed by brilliant people like you.

We’re looking for a Principal Engineer who can elevate ideas into scalable architecture, guide teams with empathy and precision, and make complex systems feel effortless for customers.

What You’ll Be Doing

You’ll be the bridge between strategy and execution, setting the architectural direction for the Order Delivery domain, partnering with engineering squads, and ensuring the health and stability of the digital ecosystem that underpins customer trust.

Expect influence at scale, autonomy to innovate, and the chance to leave a visible legacy on one of Australia’s largest digital transformations.

Your Impact

• Inspire and lead cross-domain engineering teams through architectural clarity.

• Define and communicate the target-state vision and the roadmap to get there.

• Collaborate with product and engineering leaders to embed modern, agile delivery practices.

• Model architectures that deliver measurable business and customer value.

• Drive innovation while maintaining operational excellence.

You’ll Bring

• Deep engineering experience, likely as a Principal Engineer, Technical Architect, or Tech Lead within complex, cloud-native environments.

• Strong foundation in .NET, Azure/AWS/GCP, ,Microservices, and Kubernetes.

• Proven track record in scaling distributed systems and optimising performance.

• Natural leadership - you build confidence through collaboration, clarity, and care.

• A mindset that balances technical purity with commercial impact.

What You’ll Experience

• A flexible hybrid model that prioritises wellbeing and balance.

• A collaborative culture built on trust, curiosity, and growth.

• Discounts across a number of Iconic brands connected to the business.

• Career pathways across a global organisation with the resources to back big ideas.

If you’re ready to design the systems that power Australia’s everyday, we’d love to hear from you.

Apply here or directly reach out to Dani - danielle@theonset.com.au