ASIO expands graduate program in a bid for tech grads to go after foreign agents

The Australian intelligence organisation wants a slice of the tech talent, this year expanding its graduate program in a bid to detect and defeat terrorists and spies.

Mike Burgess, Director-General of Security wants more tech graduates to chase a career as a spy with ASIO. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Australia’s largest intelligence organisation wants a slice of top tech talent, and this year is expanding its graduate program with a promise those who join will get to work on projects and operations not available anywhere else.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation is on the hunt for junior spies who can “out-think”, “out-imagine” and use technology to get rival spies’ “computers to spill their secrets”.

ASIO is expanding its grad program in 2024 and 2025, with the tech graduates pathway now providing one of its largest intakes of new spies, The Australian can confirm.

But competition for the brightest tech graduates is stiff, even for ASIO, with the organisation sponsoring a number of ads on Facebook.

ASIO's targeted ads on Facebook.

The intelligence organisation is competing with the likes of homegrown free-lunch serving technology giants such as Canva and Atlassian as well as multinationals including Salesforce, Microsoft, AWS and Amazon and the big four banks as it looks to lock in talent for its next graduate intakes.

While it can’t match the salaries the big tech companies pay – with a starting salary of between $86,602 to $95,213 – a spokeswoman said ASIO offered something that no other company could match.

“Technologist graduates can do things at ASIO that they cannot do anywhere else,” she said. “Technology graduates help stop terrorists and catch spies by getting computers to spill their secrets.”

ASIO has in recent years been frank about the types of people it wants, with Director-General Mike Burgess making it clear it’s not the place for trigger-happy types.

“We need people who can think outside the box – or perhaps get into it without being detected – rather than people who can pepper the box with bullets,” he said in his 2021 annual threat assessment.

Mike Burgess, Director-General of Security. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Mike Burgess in ASIO’s 'Why I Spy' recruitment campaign.

It is seeking those who are “clever, “curious” and “who want to do things other people think are impossible”.

“We are recruiting now for roles that go to the core of what we do – protecting Australians by stopping terrorists and catching spies,” the spokeswoman said.

“Technical expertise, agility and ingenuity are at the core of ASIO’s operations. We go up against sophisticated foreign adversaries that are effectively unconstrained by law, ethics and resources – we need to be able to out-imagine and outmanoeuvre them. We go up against extremists who are security aware and tech-savvy – we need to be able to know what they are plotting and see what they are doing – always lawfully, of course.”

People with degrees in business analysis, cloud computing, computer science or information systems, cyber security, data engineering, digital forensics, electronics, machine learning/AI, mathematics, statistics or cryptanalysis, mechanical engineering, mechatronics engineering, network or computer systems engineering, project management, reverse engineering, software engineering, telecommunications and vulnerability research were all welcome to apply.

Asked why the tech graduate path was expanding, the spokeswoman said it was to bolster its digital security capabilities.

Renders of female spies from ASIO’s Why I Spy campaign.

“ASIO is expanding our intake for the technologist graduate program in response to a complex, challenging and changing security environment,” he said.

“We need people who can out-think and out-imagine Australia’s adversaries.”

An ASIO graduate, who provided commentary under an alias, said the program had allowed them to work on counter-terrorism projects.

“Some grads may prefer more formalised training but it suits someone who is willing to work as a team, ask questions and learn as they go,” they said.

“In terms of responsibility – by the second month of my rotation, I felt I was a fully functioning officer in the lab, with all the responsibilities that go with it.”

Part of ASIO’s strategy to ramp up its intake and get in front of young people has been an increased social media presence.

The organisation has taken to posting YouTube shorts – short-form video content identical to that on TikTok – as well as posting content on Facebook.

On YouTube, ASIO had been rather active but on Facebook it has made just two posts – one posted the day it was created which read “ASIO officers are ordinary people who do extraordinary things” and one, posted last week, with the motto “come in and zoom out”.

Applications for the 2024 intake close on April 17 and applications for 2025 close on May 22.