Atlassian’s mega recruitment drive hits SA, with 1032 WFH jobs on offer

The premier has helped spruik six-figure tech jobs with a “work from anywhere” policy – but Adelaide recruits won’t be raking in as much as their Sydney or Melbourne counterparts.

The premier has backed a mega recruitment drive by tech giant Atlassian, with 1032 jobs on offer in the tech sector with a “work from anywhere” policy and six-figure salaries.

But despite big pay promises, South Australians will be worse off than their eastern counterparts under the company’s two-tier pay system.

Speaking alongside Premier Peter Malinauskas as part of a national recruitment tour, Billionaire Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar said roles from graduates to experts were up for grabs in SA.

The skill sets in highest demand are software developers, program managers and designers, but the company is also seeking to hire in customer support roles.

The company currently has 40 South Australian employees.

Mr Farguhar would not give an exact figure for how many roles would be filled by South Australian candidates but said the company was looking to grow its Adelaide “club”.

“Those jobs can be anywhere … if we could find all 1000 people here in SA that would be fantastic, we’d love to hire more people here,” Mr Farquhar said.

Mr Malinauskas said South Australians should be “grateful” that Mr Farquhar had “looked over the horizon to South Australia as an important source of talent in their story of growth”.

“I mean seriously, why would you want to live or work in Melbourne or Sydney where the cities are still dead, and there are other standards of living compromises to be made,” he said.

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas and Atlassian co-founder Scott Farquhar during a recruitment drive by software company Atlassian in Rundle Mall Adelaide. Picture: NCA NewsWire/David Mariuz

“Here in Adelaide, you can have it all … why would you want to be anywhere else.”

But despite Atlassian’s “work from anywhere” promise, Mr Farquhar confirmed that South Australians’ pay packets wouldn’t match those in Sydney or Melbourne despite the Work From Home roles.

The company’s compensation structure is based on two zones – NSW and Victoria are ‘Zone A’, while all other states and territories are ‘Zone B’.

“Atlassian pays competitive wages all around the country … (and) we pay according to the cost of labour in those locations,” Mr Farguhar said.

“You’ll get paid the same whether you work in Adelaide, Mt Gambier, Port Augusta – and get access to high paying tech jobs wherever you are.”

Mr Farquhar would not disclose the salary packages on offer, but job advertisements on Seek list the average salary for a data scientist between $115,000 and $135,000.

A product manager’s salary is listed from $120,000 to $140,000 and a marketing manager from $95,000 to $115,000.

Atlassian was founded by Mr Farquhar and fellow University of NSW graduate Mike Cannon-Brookes in 2002, and has since grown to be Australia’s biggest tech business.

The company also has another obscure SA connection – in 2017, Mr Cannon-Brookes took to Twitter to urge Tesla boss Elon Musk to make good on his idea to solve the state’s power woes with a “big battery”.

“If I can make the $ happen (& politics), can you guarantee the 100MW in 100 days?” Mr Cannon-Brookes wrote to Musk.

Musk replied: “Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?”

The owner of the Hornsdale Power Reserve, which houses the battery, was fined $900,000 by the federal court this year in a lawsuit by the Australian Energy Regulator over failure to deliver its promised capacity.