Head of Engineering
Role Overview
As Head of Engineering, you will partner with the CTO and tech leads to scale the engineering team from 20 to 40+ developers, spending 30-40% of your time in the codebase reviewing PRs, pairing on complex problems, and contributing to critical features. This senior role involves building operational foundations, driving recruitment, performance management, and career frameworks while maintaining deep technical credibility. You will ensure alignment with product priorities and foster a culture of ownership and quality in a remote-first environment.
Perks & Benefits
This is a remote-first role with flexible working hours and async collaboration, primarily working with a Melbourne-based CTO and a Philippines-based engineering team. Benefits include two annual all-expenses-paid team offsites, monthly online socials with team lunch allowances, a MacBook Pro, and ongoing learning opportunities with a training allowance. The culture emphasizes ownership, quality, and solving hard problems together in a distributed setting.
Full Job Description
About Aphex
We're the construction planning platform replacing outdated spreadsheets with multiplayer tools that delivery teams love.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.
What you'll do
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
About you
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.
What we offer
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, PhilippinesMonthly 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
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