About Lookahead
What is Lookahead?
Lookahead is a Sydney-based technical recruitment agency that pairs Australia's best software companies with the engineers, AI specialists, designers, and product managers who help build them. From the verbatim homepage tagline: "Assembling dream teams, one person at a time." Lookahead operates as "a technical recruitment agency, helping Australia's best companies hire people who care about building great software".
From the verbatim what-we-do page: "With deep roots in the tech community, we are passionate about connecting talented software engineers (including AI and data), and other technical professionals with rewarding work environments." The agency hires for all levels of technical roles — from front-end to back, junior to senior, all the way to VPs and CTOs.
Lookahead's services span contingent hiring, embedded recruitment, and executive search, with particular specialisation in AI engineers, ML engineers, data engineers, software engineers (JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Go, Ruby on Rails, mobile, front-end) and platform engineers. The agency has also placed designers, UX researchers, and product managers.
Founder + first placement story verbatim: "Our first placement was the first technical hire for a startup (👋 Airtasker) and the second was a lead developer with the ABC. More than a decade later, we're still happily working with a diverse range of organisations." Founder Steve Gilles continues to lead the team — applications go directly to [email protected].
Where will I work?
Lookahead is headquartered at 10 / 191 Clarence Street, Sydney NSW 2000. The team operates a hybrid model — quite flexible on remote and in-office time, with 1-2 days/week in the Sydney office typical. The verbatim land acknowledgement reads: "The Lookahead office is located on the traditional lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded and pay our respects to elders past, present, and future."
What is the Lookahead team like?
The team page introduces 8 named recruiters:
- Steve Gilles — Founder
- Fiona Chan — Technical Recruiter since 2015
- Debbie Teakle
- Sarah Jacob
- Maureen Gilles
- Kyle Jackson
- Chris Concepcion
- Arriane De Villa
From Fiona Chan's verbatim profile: "Although I'm not coding on a daily basis, I've really enjoyed meeting developers and chatting with them. Having that technical background definitely helps me understand what developers and companies are after. I've also spent a lot of time giving people general advice on job searching and resume writing. They really appreciate that."
Values verbatim include: Play the long game, Cultivate community, Quality over quantity, Be a trusted advisor, Empower each other. The agency sponsors Sydney tech community events including SydJS, ReactConf AU, SydCSS, JSconf, RubyConf, CSSconf, Cocoaheads, RMIT Hackathon, MusesJS, Code Heart Design, React Sydney, Sydney Tech Leaders, Debugging Diversity, and CampJS.
Work-Life Balance
Verbatim from the join-our-team page: "Four day weeks. When Covid first hit, we stopped working Fridays. Now we have found we get just as much done working Monday to Thursday." Lookahead has run a permanent 4-day, 32-hour week since 2020. Founder Steve Gilles has confirmed the schedule publicly: "Taking the same day off has been a very good thing for us. You're never letting a colleague down because they're off too. And clients don't seem to mind – we are still contactable on Fridays in case something time-sensitive comes up." (Information Age, ACS, 2022).
Perks and Benefits
Verbatim from the live /join-our-team careers page:
- $80k to $100k + super for 4 days, depending on experience.
- Generous commission scheme + profit share on top of base salary.
- 5 weeks annual leave after your first year, rising to 6 weeks after your second year.
- Quite flexible on remote vs in-office time.
- High-end computer, a tablet, and mobile phone covered — "We never skimp on technology."
- Generous training and conference budget — "We don't skimp on training or conferences either."
- Pledge 1% member since 2017 — 1% of profits to Lifeline Australia and SANE.org, 1% of time as volunteer leave for a cause of your choosing, and 1% of product to charitable causes.
- First company to take the talent partner pledge in Project F's Program 50/50.
- Proud supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
- Apply directly to [email protected] or via the careers page.