Lead Developer

• 26 days’ annual leave, including 1 for your birthday
• Max term contract based in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane
• Flexibility – work from home and the office each week
• We value a positive and supportive work environment

Role

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced developer to step into a true technical leadership role. As Lead Developer, you will guide the direction of our application landscape, championing security, compliance, code quality, and strong engagement with business stakeholders. While not a coding-heavy position, you will play a critical role in shaping engineering priorities, directing both onshore and offshore teams, and ensuring the delivery of secure, high-quality solutions that align with business goals.

This role is perfect for a seasoned developer looking to expand into leadership, someone who can influence architecture and technical strategy, mentor others, and drive best-practice development, without being a full-time hands-on coder.

Responsibilities

• Lead security and compliance practices across all development activity, including reviewing and prioritising security findings and ensuring timely remediation.
• Provide technical leadership across .NET, PHP, AWS, and MuleSoft integrations, guiding both onshore and offshore developers.
• Set and enforce code quality standards, including reviewing technical designs, pull requests, and ensuring CI/CD quality gates are met.
• Maintain a rolling technical roadmap aligned to business priorities, balancing BAU, security, architectural improvements, and new initiatives.
• Collaborate with product and business stakeholders, translating technical concepts into clear recommendations.
• Lead and mentor developers, acting as a technical escalation point and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous learning.
• Oversee incident response and production support, including participation in the on-call roster.
• Leverage AI and emerging technologies to enhance development quality, speed, and overall engineering effectiveness.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering background with experience across .NET, PHP, and AWS.
• Proven technical leadership experience, including managing onshore and offshore development teams.
• Deep understanding of secure development practices and modern security tooling (e.g., Snyk, Orca, AWS Inspector).
• Experience with secure SDLC processes, including threat modelling and design reviews.
• Ability to manage technical backlogs, prioritise competing demands, and work effectively with product teams.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to influence and explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience owning production systems, including incident response and root cause analysis.
• Experience with Agile delivery, CI/CD pipelines, Git, Jira/Confluence, and managing cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred).

Applications close 16th January 2026

About Us

Kaplan Australia is one of the world's leading providers of lifelong education, helping over one million students around the globe achieve their educational and career goals each year. While we provide a broad array of educational offerings through our programs, our commitment to providing unrivalled quality and great learning outcomes is consistent in each of our businesses.  

Kaplan Australia has been recognised as an Inclusive Employer by Diversity Council Australia. We pride ourselves on being a kind and inclusive organisation that is reflective of our diverse student group across Kaplan Business School, Kaplan Professional and our Pathways Colleges, and truly value the richness and experience of our diverse team. We will use this momentum to continue to enhance our equity, diversity, and inclusiveness.

Background-Check Notice & Declaration

Kaplan and many of its major clients operate in highly regulated environments. This requires us to be proactive and diligent in relation to personnel background checks and to undertake thorough vetting of candidates for roles of this nature. To enable Kaplan to assess a candidate’s suitability for this role, each candidate will be required to answer pre-screening questions, and, if you receive a conditional offer of employment, you will be required to undertake the relevant background checks (unless Kaplan determines otherwise). These checks may include one or more of the following: verification of identity, working rights, criminal history, qualifications, and working with children clearance. If you are shortlisted, Kaplan will advise you which checks are required for this role and explain how you will undertake the checks. Kaplan is committed to handling your personal information appropriately. Please see the Privacy Policy at Kaplan.edu.au for information about how Kaplan may handle your personal information in connection with this application process. 

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