Technical Team Lead (React/PHP)

Founded in 2002, ELMO Software is the trusted provider of HR technology solutions to 2,000+ mid-sized organisations and more than one million end users across Australia and New Zealand.With a comprehensive suite of ISO-certified solutions that span the full employee lifecycle, ELMO Software is designed to scale as organisations grow. Flexible and configurable, ELMO's one-stop HRIS fits to your specific needs and workflows.Through powerful technology, automation, data and analytics, ELMO Software empowers HR professionals to play an integral role in company decision making.

Life & Culture

At ELMO you will be joining an epic team with the opportunity to make a big impact. We foster an authentic, collaborative, fun working environment and being an ELMOnian means you're part of an amazing team that will push you to grow, support you with challenges and allow you to shine. Some of our benefits include:

• Paid Parental leave - 12 weeks primary, 6 weeks secondary
• Birthday leave, YOU day each year, as well as connecting people leave (up to 2weeks working from anywhere)
• Inhouse Learning and Development initiatives
• ELMO Social and Diversity clubs
• Mental Health/EAP programs
• Flare Benefits (great discounts, novated leasing, salary sacrifice)

Our values:

• Reimagine What's Possible- We believe innovation is human at its core. By staying open, fearless, and adaptive, we continuously push boundaries - while keeping people at the heart of everything we do.
• Obsess over Customers- Everything we do is designed to positively impact our customers.
• Help Others Thrive- Be they colleagues, communities or customers, we champion ways to help others thrive.
• Be Fearlessly Optimistic- We bring unwavering positivity to any challenge, as we know it will drive meaningful change.

Job Description

About the opportunity:

Reporting to the Engineering Manager, the Technical Leader for Survey, leaving a team of two high-performing engineers. This is a crucial, blended role where you combine deep technical expertise with direct team leadership and accountability.

Key Responsibilities:

• Technical Strategy & Vision: Define and drive the team's technical roadmap, collaborating on cross-cutting architectural challenges and standardising best practices.
• Engineering Quality & Ownership: Own the team's output, ensuring the highest standards for security, reliability, and observability. Guide the team through incident resolution and preventative measures.
• Team Leadership & Mentorship: Lead hiring, foster a healthy and psychologically safe environment, and provide hands on technical mentorship, including code reviews and one on one guidance.
• AI & Innovation Champion: Proactively identify and champion the practical use of AI powered workflows to boost developer productivity and innovation across the team.
• Delivery Partnership: Partner with the Product Owner to translate complex business needs into clean, scalable, and maintainable solutions, managing technical debt and project dependencies.

Desired Skills and Experience:

We value a strong technical foundation and leadership presence.

• Demonstrated 5+ years' experience in an Agile/Scrum environment.
• Proven experience in a Team Leadership role within an Agile/Scrum environment.
• Strong knowledge of web technologies such as Node.js, React, Kafka and PHP
• A natural knack for writing clean, readable, and maintainable code.
• Strong knowledge of OOP, design patterns, and architectural patterns (e.g., event-driven microservices).
• Experience creating and maintaining scalable applications on cloud platforms (AWS)
• The ability to mentor your team on the practical, value driven use of AI in software development.

Responsibilities:

• Lead the team in a roughly 50/50 hands on and leadership role, owning technical delivery quality and day to day technical leadership.
• Partner with the Product Owner to turn business intent into precise, build ready technical specifications.
• Own technical direction for the product area, including architecture, integration patterns, security and technical feasibility.
• Plan and guide AI native delivery, including how AI tools and agents are used to accelerate build work safely and effectively.
• Maintain quality across the codebase through code review, engineering standards and automated quality gates.
• Oversee deployment safety, including release readiness, progressive rollout and rollback considerations.
• Lead resolution of complex production issues and technical risks, and support the team's ongoing growth through coaching and feedback.

Technical skills:

• Strong hands on software engineering background, including React frontends and PHP backend development.
• Strong understanding of software architecture, API design, integration patterns and secure application design.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technically precise, testable specifications.
• Experience reviewing code at scale and upholding consistent quality standards across human written and AI generated code.
• Strong judgement in AI assisted development, including orchestration, prompt direction and critical review of generated output.
• Strong stakeholder communication and people leadership capability.

Nice to have:

• Experience with AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code or Codex and familiarity with GraphQL.

ELMO Software Pty Ltd is an equal opportunity employer, and we encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds to join our team - a commitment reflected in our Reconciliation Action Plan .
As the first software company in Australia and New Zealand to achieve ISO 42001:2023 Certification, we're passionate about responsible, secure and safe AI. Key to this role is an awareness of data privacy and security, as you'll be working with sensitive employee data in accordance with our ISO 27001:2022 Certified security policies.