AI Systems Developer

We're not just another AI company.

Honestly, there are enough of those. Generic tools, no soul, a logo that looks like every other logo. That's not us.

Cata1yst is a New Zealand AI company that works inside real businesses – trades, accountants, consumer brands, HR and professional services. We're not a product. We go in, sit with the people doing the actual work, find where the time and money are leaking, and build the thing that fixes it.

Some weeks that's standing in front of a whole team teaching them to use AI properly. Some weeks it's working out what's worth building and what isn't. Most weeks it's building – apps, agents, automations, and connections into the systems a business already runs on. Then we stick around and keep building, because the good work never really finishes.

Every big company has an internal software team. Most New Zealand businesses have never had one. We're that team, for them. And we're good at it.

This isn't a churn-and-burn gig. We've spent nearly two years earning trust the slow way – by turning up, listening, and shipping. Now we've got more in the pipeline than we can get to, and the right person gets in early on something that's growing fast.

The Role:

A grow-with-the-business role for someone early in their career – studying, just finished, or self-taught – who's genuinely into AI and wants to build things that matter to real businesses. Not demos. Not decks. Things people open on a Monday morning.

Full-time is the goal. If you're still studying and can only give us part of a week, apply anyway – we'd rather shape the role around the right person than miss them.

You'll start building alongside the dev team. Over time you'll take on clients of your own: getting to know their business, working out what's actually worth building, and building it. Half the job is technical. The other half is people. We care about both.

Full-time or part-time | Hours up for discussion | Remote, ideally Auckland

You'll Be Building Things Like:

• AI agents and assistants that do a real job inside a business

• Web apps and databases that replace the spreadsheet and the paperwork

• Automations that run on their own, before anyone gets to work

• Connections between AI and the software a business already runs on – accounting, job management, Microsoft 365

• Whatever next month's client needs – no two are ever the same

Who You Are:

Skills matter – but attitude wins. Every time.

• You're studying (or have studied) CompSci or Software Eng – or you taught yourself and can show us

• You've already built things with AI, even if the only user was you

• You think in systems, not just code – how things connect, talk, and flow

• You like people. You can explain something technical to a business owner without making them feel stupid, and without making yourself sound clever

• You'd rather figure it out than wait to be told

• You've got personality, not a templated LinkedIn summary

• You don't need to be full-stack. You do need to be hungry to learn whatever the next job needs

If that sounds like you, you've found the right place.

Bonus Points For:

• Claude, MCP, or any hands-on agent building

• Supabase or Postgres, and a lightweight frontend

• Make, n8n, or any automation platform

• Azure or Microsoft 365 – a lot of our clients live there

• A side project you can't stop talking about

What's In It For You:

We keep it real – and we make sure you're looked after.

• Live projects. No busy work. What you build gets used by a real business the week you ship it

• Training. Everything we do was new to us once. We'll teach you what we know and figure out the rest together

• Team lunches. No office, but we make a point of getting together properly – which is why we'd love you to be in Auckland

• A role that grows as we do. Real responsibility early, and more of it as you earn it

• A team that actually cares about you having a life. If something's on, go to it. We mean that

To Apply:

No formalities – just send:

• A short intro, in your own words (no need to pretend you love "working under pressure")

• 1–2 things you've built – GitHub, screenshots, a demo, uni work. Half-finished is fine; tell us what you'd do differently

• Whether you're after full-time or part-time, and roughly how many hours a week if it's part-time

If we like what we see, we'll send you a short practical task: a real situation, and how you'd approach it. Then we'll talk.

You'll need the right to work in New Zealand. Ideally you're in Auckland.

And if you've made it this far…

You've probably figured out we actually care about our people. Not in a "check the values box" kind of way. In a "we started this because we were sick of jobs that cared about the output and not the person" kind of way.

We're a small team doing work we're genuinely proud of, for businesses that have never had anyone build for them. The work is hard, the clients are brilliant, and no two weeks look the same.

We're real humans, building real things, for real businesses.

If that hits – let's talk.