Lead Software Engineer

ZigZag is looking for a Lead Software Engineer to join our team! 

*You must be willing to work on a hybrid setup 


About the Client

Our client was built as a full service agency delivering digital marketing, websites, systems, and execution for Australian businesses. Over time, the business expanded into building its own internal tools to solve the operational and delivery challenges faced by both clients and agencies.
From this work, two platforms emerged:

• CanTicket – a SaaS platform designed to coordinate work, manage delivery, track tasks, and remove operational chaos from service based businesses.
• Candid Connect – a marketing and CRM platform that enables businesses to manage leads, campaigns, automation, and communication in one system.

Together, these form an integrated ecosystem designed to help businesses operate with clarity, execute consistently, and scale sustainably.

RESPONSIBILITIES/CORE SUCCESS METRICS (POST PROBATION) 

• Delivery and milestones
  The Technical Lead is accountable for achieving and maintaining predictable delivery. Measured by:
  • Defined roadmap milestones delivered on time
  • Reduction in missed or rolled over tickets
  • Clear weekly delivery commitments met consistently
  • Visible reduction in founder intervention for delivery issues
  • Expected outcome: roadmaps translate into shipped work, not stalled plans.
     
• Developer performance and efficiency
  The Technical Lead is responsible for improving the output of all developers. Measured by:
  • Increased developer velocity within the first 90 days
  • Clear ownership per developer and per task
  • Reduction in rework and unclear scope issues
  • Identification and correction or exit of underperforming developers
  • Expected outcome: a smaller, more effective team that delivers more reliably
     
• Documentation and IP protection
  The Technical Lead must remove single points of failure. Measured by:
  • Core systems and workflows documented
  • Reduced reliance on individual developers’ knowledge
  • New developers able to onboard without founder involvement
  • Expected outcome: IP is protected and transferable.
     
• Operational independence from founder 
  A critical metric. Measured by:
  • Founder no longer required for daily technical decisions
  • Technical Lead independently managing delivery, prioritisation, and escalation
  • Clear, concise reporting replacing ad hoc conversations
  • Expected outcome: Founder operates at strategy and product level, not execution
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• ​​​​​Commercial and profit aligned performance
  The Technical Lead is expected to understand the commercial impact of technical decisions. Measured by:
  • Reduced cost of delivery through efficiency improvements
  • Clear visibility of development cost per feature or project
  • Fewer overruns on client website and technical work
  • Alignment of development effort with profitable work
  • Expected outcome: Technical execution supports margin, not erodes it.
    ​​​​​​​
• ​​​​​Where applicable, performance based incentives may be tied to:
  • Delivery against agreed milestones
  • Reduction in technical overhead
  • Measurable efficiency gains
     

• Cross team collaboration
  ​​​​​​​Measured by:
  • Smooth collaboration with Marketing Manager on websites and campaigns
  • Reduced friction between marketing and development
  • Faster turnaround for website changes via CanTicket
  • Expected outcome: Marketing and development operate as one system.

REQUIREMENTS: 
The Technical Lead must have deep working knowledge and leadership level understanding of the following stack. They do not need to be coding daily.

• Laravel (production SaaS environments)
• PHP (modern standards and performance considerations)
• MySQL (schema design, performance, data integrity)
• AWS (environments, deployments, security, scalability)

Hands on coding is not required. The ability to diagnose issues, challenge decisions, and guide solutions is.
SaaS and production experience. Must have experience working in a live SaaS product in market, including:

• SaaS operational realities (releases, uptime, reliability)
• Understanding of multi-tenant or SaaS style environments
• Incident response and production issue management
• Security and data protection expectations
• Balancing speed with stability

The Technical Lead must bring best practice thinking and enforce standards across the team. API and integration capability. Must have strong experience overseeing and guiding:

• REST API design and implementation
• API authentication and security patterns
• Third party integrations
• Webhooks and event driven workflows
• API documentation standards

The Technical Lead must be able to:

• Review API decisions
• Identify risks
• Resolve integration issues
• Guide developers toward scalable solutions

Acute problem solving (critical requirement)
This role requires an acute problem solver, not a task executor. The Technical Lead must be able to:

• Rapidly diagnose complex technical and delivery issues
• Identify root causes, not symptoms
• Propose practical, scalable solutions
• Make decisions under pressure
• Unblock teams without stepping into the codebase

Leadership and delivery requirements
This is a thinking and leadership role, not an individual contributor role.  Must have proven experience in a lead role, including:

• Leading developers and enforcing accountability
• Translating business and product direction into executable work
• Running delivery cadence and weekly commitments
• Enforcing QA and definition of done
• Owning documentation and knowledge transfer
• Making hard calls on performance when required

Strong preference 
Not mandatory, but highly valued:

• Experience improving existing SaaS products, not just greenfield builds
• Exposure to subscription models or SaaS billing
• AWS deployment pipelines and operational maturity
• Experience leading offshore or distributed teams

ZigZag is committed to building a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace. We believe that talent knows no borders, and we welcome individuals from all backgrounds to help us shape the future of work. Guided by transparency and agility, we foster an environment where everyone is valued and empowered to thrive.

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