Staff Product Engineer / Principal Architect

Staff Product Engineer. I connect product vision with technical execution so your team can ship the right things safely.
Connect
Get their resume and portfolio

Work expectations

Status
Actively looking
Not looking
Not looking
Open to new opportunities
Location
Sydney
-
Open to relocating
Commitment
Full-time, Casual / Contract / Part-time, Join as a startup co-founder
Availability from time of offer
Immediately
Development experience
7+ years
Top 3 languages or frameworks
TypeScript, Java, Python
Also knows
Preferred work environment
Hybrid, Fully remote
Strengths
I am a systems thinker and a "force multiplier". My biggest strength is stepping into a chaotic environment, finding the actual bottlenecks slowing the team down, and fixing the root cause rather than just applying a band-aid. I bridge the gap between product strategy and engineering execution. I don't just ask "how do we build this?"; I ask "should we build this, and how do we build it so it doesn't break at scale?". Finally, I operate on "Data over Ego". I believe the best idea should win, regardless of who suggested it. I have the technical depth to debate complex architecture, but I leave my ego at the door and I expect the same from the teams I work with.
Interested in working involving
I'm looking for early-stage teams (Seed/Series A) that have built a great product but are starting to hit technical scaling walls. I operate as a Staff Product Engineer or Technical Advisor and I'm open to full-time or fractional roles. I work best at the intersection of product strategy and technical execution. Since I can also step into a Product Manager role, I help close the gap between an ambitious product vision and the actual reliable technology needed to support it. I usually come in when the "move fast and break things" phase starts slowing a team down. I build the lightweight technical foundations, like automated testing, smooth release processes, and safe AI guardrails, that let a small engineering team figure out exactly what to build and then ship it reliably at speed. Industries: High-stakes or regulated domains (HealthTech, FinTech, B2B SaaS) where reliability actually matters and the business is solving a real problem.
Not interested in work involving

* Feature Factories: Roles where you just mechanically churn through predefined tickets without any ability to influence the product direction or understand the "why". * Big-Corp Bureaucracy or Metrics Theater: Startups pretending to be enterprises. I build pragmatic systems that enable speed, not heavy corporate processes. * Ego-Driven Cultures: I need a "Data over Ego" environment. We won't align if founders are looking for a cheerleader rather than a truth-seeking technical partner. * Pure AI Hype: Companies wanting to bolt on AI features as fast as possible without caring about making them reliable, safe, and free from hallucinations.

Other information
I operate as a "Quiet Scientist". I do my best work when I have the autonomy to deeply explore and probe a system, across tech, product, and people, before prescribing a solution. Companies should hire me when they transition from the "move fast and break things" phase to needing real reliability, and their engineering team is losing momentum because their technology or release processes are buckling under scale. I am an "Architect in the Shadows", I don't need the spotlight or to give town hall speeches. I want to build the underlying systems, testing frameworks, and automated guardrails that empower your developers to move fast safely. If you need a truth-seeking partner who will tell you what's actually broken and then help you fix it, we should talk.
Able to work in Australia without visa sponsorship
Requires visa sponsorship to work in Australia

Pay expectations

Full-time
$
220000
per year
Casual / Contract
$
200
per hour
Pay is negotiable in exchange for equity
Pay is negotiable in exchange for equity
Pay is not negotiable in exchange for equity
Open to volunteering or working for equity only
Not interested in volunteering or working for equity only if joining as a co-founder

Referred by

  •  

Work experience

Proudest professional achievement
I am a Staff Product Engineer and Systems Architect with 20+ years of experience connecting product vision with technical execution. I've worked across hyper-growth scale-ups, regulated enterprises, and top-tier tech companies.

Technical Advisor & AI Systems Lead
Healthcare voice AI startups • Hardened a hallucinating healthcare voice AI prototype into a reliable and production-ready clinical system. I built the technical guardrails and complex patient workflows needed to make the AI safe for real-world medical use.

Staff Software/Quality Engineer
Australian banking institution • Modernised the bank's payments platform and built automated testing environments. This cut the time it took to test and deploy new features from days of manual work down to just 2 minutes, proving that teams can move fast even in highly regulated environments.

Engineering Manager, Platform
Global deployment automation company • Built the company's first internal platform team during a period of hyper-growth. I overhauled the systems engineers used to build and release software, cutting build times in half and saving the company over $500K USD a year.

Senior Software Engineer
Global technology and cloud services company • Led reliability initiatives for cloud storage product serving over 100 million users, reducing crash rates by more than 90%. I also built the automated systems that tested data updates for mapping and transit services.

I step into complex environments, diagnose the structural bottlenecks, and build the pragmatic foundations that allow small engineering teams to ship features rapidly without breaking the product.

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (Bioinformatics) Macquarie University, 2004-2005 (Incomplete)
Bachelor of Science (Computing Science - First Class Honours) The University of NSW, 2003
Bachelor of Science (Molecular Biotechnology) Sydney University, 2000–2002
Connect to get their LinkedIn profile, real name, contact details and portfolio
Connect
No challenges complete yet

Vouched for by

@

Interviews

No items found.
SkillsRobin ID: 
wgedrty

Other similar candidates

Get 5 prevetted developers each month
For Hiring Managers
How it worksPricingBrowse developersPost job
For Developers
How it worksDev JobsCreate profile
Get in touch
hello@skillsrobin.com
ResourcesRefer and earnOur mission
Follow us on