AI engineer - immediate start

Aspire AI has built a purpose-built voice and chat AI for Australian local government, combining conversational AI with deterministic operational logic to safely automate customer service and after-hours response.

We are approximately six months into the launch of the business and already working across multiple councils, handling thousands of calls per month and generating approximately $50k++ MRR

We are looking for an ai engineer to head up fault finding, bug rectificationa and improvement of the platform on a full time basis.

We need someone who is highly hands-on and wants to personally own production engineering.

You will work directly with the founder and take responsibility for the technical environment as Aspire moves from a founder-built platform into a professionally engineered, scalable technology company.

What you'll do

Initially, you will spend a significant amount of your time directly in the codebase.

You will:

investigate and resolve real production defects; write, review and ship production code; understand and progressively improve the existing architecture; simplify unnecessary complexity rather than continually adding layers; strengthen automated testing and regression protection; improve observability, monitoring and release reliability; own technical diagnosis when something goes wrong in production; help evolve our AI, voice and deterministic decision systems; guide integrations with council and enterprise platforms; establish sensible engineering standards and development practices; determine what technical capability Aspire needs next; and ultimately help recruit and lead the broader engineering team.

We want someone capable of personally solving difficult engineering problems today who can grow into leading the engineering organisation tomorrow as transition to a senior role is absolutley a pathway.

About the technology

Aspire is a live production AI platform used by councils to interact with residents through voice and digital channels such as chat and sms.

The system combines LLM-based conversational capability with deterministic business logic controlling operational actions such as escalation, information collection, notifications and duty-officer contact eleimnating the need for expensive after hours call centre contracts.

We make extensive use of modern AI-assisted engineering tools, including tools such as Claude Code and Codex.

We want someone who embraces those tools, but who has the engineering depth to recognise when generated code is architecturally wrong, unnecessarily complex or addressing a symptom rather than the underlying problem. If right now you just ask claude how to fix things and do not know your self, this role is not for you. AI should multiply strong engineering judgement — not replace it.

You may be a strong fit if you are experienced building and operating real production software; comfortable working across backend systems, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure and distributed systems; experienced with production AI/LLM systems; comfortable diagnosing difficult production failures; commercially minded and interested in understanding the customer problem, not just the code; capable of moving quickly without sacrificing engineering discipline; and excited by the opportunity to help shape a company at a very early but already revenue-generating stage.

Experience in conversational AI, voice systems, agentic systems, enterprise SaaS, government technology or regulated environments would be particularly valuable, but is not essential.

About the founder

Aspire was founded by a former British Army soldier who went on to senior executive leadership in Australia's largest local government — with responsibility for approximately 2,000 staff and a portfolio approaching $1 billion, before becoming CEO of a large regional Council.

Aspire was created to solve local-government problems experienced firsthand from inside the sector, and with that comes an unparalleled connection base into Councils most senior staff.

The founder currently leads product (inc debugging and fixing), sales, relationships and business development. This role is intended to progressively take primary ownership of engineering and technology.

Compensation

$90k–$110k base + superannuation

plus a meaningful performance incentive, with potential total variable compensation of approximately $30k–$40k for strong performance.

We are more interested in finding the right person than forcing an exceptional candidate into a rigid package.

Location

Brisbane preferred, with flexibility elsewhere in Australia for an exceptional candidate.

What success looks like

The founder should no longer be the person primarily responsible for diagnosing and fixing technical production issues.

You should have:

taken ownership of production engineering; materially improved reliability and development discipline; simplified parts of the platform where necessary; established a strong engineering operating model; helped make onboarding new councils increasingly repeatable; and begun building the technical team required for Aspire's next stage.

This is a role for a builder who wants to become a technical leader — not a technical leader who has stopped building.

Please do not contact me if you are outside of Australia.