Junior Full-Stack Developer & AI Engineer

Build the AI backbone of a fast-growing Australian business 🚀

📍 Zetland, Sydney · Full-time (4 days office, 1 day WFH)

💰 $70k–$75k base + super

🧠 First dev hire — high ownership, direct line to the founder

We're hiring our first in-house developer — and we want someone who treats AI as a power tool, not a sidekick.

This is a rare opportunity to be the first developer at Hire A Mover, working directly with the founder to design and ship the AI-driven systems that will run a fast-growing business. You won't be one engineer of fifty. You'll be the one engineer — with a blank canvas, real autonomy, and your work running the business from day one.

About Hire A Mover

We're the contents handling specialist that insurance builders and restoration companies rely on across Australia — packing, moving and storing contents through the claims process. We also run a national B2C removals, packing, boxes and storage business across NSW, VIC, QLD, SA and WA.

The business has doubled in the past year and we're not slowing down.

What you'll build

We're consolidating and modernising our backend — fewer systems, smarter workflows, AI woven through everything. Quoting, bookings, scheduling, client portals, invoicing, fuel and toll costing, customer comms — all of it streamlined.

Exactly what shape that takes — one big platform, several integrated systems, or somewhere in between — is what we'll figure out as we build. We'd rather hire someone who's excited by that than pretend we have it all designed already.

Alongside the backend build, our public websites stay as WordPress and keep evolving — Hire A Mover, Hire A Packer and Hire A Box. They're our shopfront, they're growing with us, and they need ongoing technical, SEO and design work.

Three streams of work:

•      The new backend — designing and shipping our AI-driven operating system. Quoting, bookings, scheduling, client portals, invoicing, plus integrations with Xero, GPS tracking, SMS and email. Replaces our existing CodeIgniter CRM function by function.

•      Public websites — ongoing. Technical changes, SEO, page builds, conversion improvements. You'll brief and work alongside our UX designers, translating designs into production-ready code. This stream is permanent, not transitional.

•      Existing CodeIgniter CRM — light-touch maintenance until each function gets absorbed by the new backend.

What we care about 🔥

We care more about intelligence, initiative, curiosity and speed of learning than years of experience or specific frameworks.

You might be:

•      A recent CS or software engineering grad

•      A strong self-taught developer

•      Someone already building serious side projects

•      1–2 years into your first dev role

What matters most:

•      You build with AI as your primary tool, not as a sidekick. You've shipped real things with Claude, Cursor, or the OpenAI/Anthropic APIs. You think in prompts and pipelines as naturally as you think in functions and loops.

•      You're a builder, not a ticket-closer. You'd rather ship something useful than spend a week in a Jira queue.

•      You're comfortable with ambiguity. The backend isn't fully designed yet — we want someone excited to help shape it, not someone who needs the spec handed to them.

Bonus, not required: experience with PHP, CodeIgniter, WordPress, marketing automation, SEO, or analytics.

You'll thrive here if you

•      Love building real things that get used immediately

•      Want exposure to AI, product, business and growth — not just code

•      Prefer momentum over bureaucracy

•      Want to become dangerously capable in your 20s

•      Use AI tools constantly to move faster

What's different about this role 🌟

•      First dev hire — blank canvas, your work runs the business

•      Real autonomy on what gets built — AI woven through everything

•      Direct line to the founder. No layers, no committee

•      Genuine variety — backend AI build, public websites, SEO, UX collab, all in one job

•      Zetland office — fun shared workspace, pool table, snacks and drinks, dog-friendly

•      Work from home one day a week

•      Half-day off on your birthday

•      $70k–$75k base + super

Important

This is a primarily in-office role in Zetland — 4 days in the office, 1 day from home. We strongly believe smart people working together in person learn, collaborate and execute dramatically faster.

You'll need full Australian work rights.

To apply

We care more about proof of curiosity and capability than polished corporate resumes. We're using a TestGorilla assessment to keep it fair and remove unconscious bias:

https://app.testgorilla.com/s/098kpj9o

• Successful candidates will be invited to interview.