Senior Engineering Manager

The client
Buddy is proud to be exclusively partnering with Cario, an Australian-built, cloud-native freight and transport management platform that helps businesses turn freight from a cost centre into a competitive advantage.

Cario connects businesses to around 500 carriers, including Australia Post, StarTrack, DHL and FedEx, and integrates natively with SAP, NetSuite, Dynamics 365 and Shopify. The platform processes a new consignment every 2.8 seconds. Cario has a strong position in Australia's $100bn freight industry and is now expanding into the US. Next up, it's building digital workers and AI agents that run freight operations on behalf of customers.

The role
Scaling in Australia and expanding into the US, Cario is now adding a senior leader to take its engineering function to the next level. Reporting to the CTO, you'll lead a team of 7 and set the bar for how they deliver, how the platform runs and how far they grow.

This is a technically credible leadership position that remains close to design, code quality and production operations without becoming the default implementer for every project. You'll be actively involved in design and code reviews, troubleshooting, pairing and targeted implementation where this unblocks delivery or improves engineering practices. You'll also connect engineers to the "why", so they understand the customer and commercial impact of what they build.

We're looking for a hands-on leader who earns respect from engineers and loves all aspects of building a high-performing team.

What you'll do

• Build a team that can deliver and run the platform independently, through coaching, clear expectations and strong backup coverage

• Own the operating rhythm, moving committed work from requirements to production with clear owners, realistic milestones and early action on blockers

• Set and enforce engineering standards across code review, automated testing, CI/CD and releases

• Own design quality within the CTO's architectural direction, and drive down technical debt

• Lift platform reliability, observability and incident response, and lead blameless reviews that actually close the loop

• Lead adoption of AI-assisted engineering and delivery of digital workers and agent-based workflows, with the right controls in place

• Translate technical constraints into clear trade-offs for the Product, Customer Success, Operations and Commercial teams

What you'll bring

• A track record leading software engineering teams, including hiring, coaching, performance management and owning delivery

• A strong engineering background, with the credibility to challenge designs, spot implementation risks and guide tech leads

• Sound technical judgement in cloud-native and distributed systems: APIs, integrations, event-driven architecture, reliability, scalability and failure handling

• Practical, hands-on knowledge of automated testing, CI/CD, observability, incident management and secure development

• Proof you've introduced engineering discipline in a growing software business, using delivery, quality and operational evidence to drive measurable gains

• Confidence planning capacity, managing dependencies and explaining technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders

• Experience leading engineering teams across locations, with clear communication, work allocation and coordination

• Desirable: Azure, .NET, TypeScript, Python and SQL; workflow orchestration and enterprise integrations (TMS, ERP, SAP, WMS); hands-on experience with AI dev tools or shipping agent-based systems; a background in freight, logistics or supply chain

What's on offer

• A frontier role applying AI to Australia's $100bn freight industry

• Real scope to shape engineering standards, the team and the platform as Cario expands into the US

• Hybrid working arrangements with offices in Cremorne or Dandenong South

• An outstanding culture underpinned by trust, ownership and a shared focus on customer impact.

Apply now. Applications close 5pm, Wednesday 14 October.