Technology recruitment in Sydney, run like a search

Assessed shortlists for leaders and specialists, a known contract bench, and clients who come back.

Brief a role Talk to us +61 468 179 457
400+searches across close to 20 years
90%+of clients come back for the next search
3 to 6 weeksfrom brief to accepted offer, retained
12 weeksreplacement guarantee on every search

You brief three agencies on a head of engineering role on Monday. By Thursday you have forty CVs, and a dozen of them are the same people, sent by different firms with a different cover note on top. Nobody at any of those firms has spoken to the engineer for longer than it took to confirm they were open to a move. The matching was done on keywords. The candidate learned about your role when their CV landed in your inbox, and so did your competitors, because the same CV went to them.

That is how most technology recruitment in Sydney works, and it is why CIOs and heads of talent tell us they have stopped reading the first wave. The people you actually want, the platform lead who has run the migration you are about to start, the data lead who has got a model into production and kept it there, are not on the job boards and will not answer a templated InMail. They take a call because of who is making it, and because the story about the role is specific to them.

Technology recruitment, run like a search. That is the whole proposition, and the rest of this page is what it means in practice.

What Altura is

Altura is a technology and transformation recruitment agency and executive search firm headquartered in Sydney, working nationally. Founded and led by Mark King after close to 20 years in search, the firm is built on the network from those years: more than 400 searches across technology leadership, program delivery, enterprise platforms and data. Every brief is run by a search partner who knows the market the role sits in, not by a researcher working a keyword list.

What we recruit

Six disciplines, from the leadership seat down to the specialists who do the work.

  • Technology leadership. CIO, CTO, CDO, CISO, heads of technology and engineering.
  • Strategy and transformation. Chief transformation officers, transformation directors, heads of strategy, private equity value creation roles.
  • Program, project and change. Program and project directors, PMO leads, agile delivery leads, change leads.
  • SAP, ERP, CRM and enterprise platforms. S/4HANA, Dynamics 365, Salesforce, Workday and ServiceNow: program directors, solution architects, functional leads, integration and data migration leads.
  • Data, AI and analytics. Heads of data, data platform leads, ML engineering leads, data product owners, analytics engineering.
  • Specialist technology and engineering. Cloud and platform, SRE, integration leads, cyber, trading and market data technology.

How it works

Three engagement models, matched to the hire.

Retained search for leadership and hard-to-fill roles. Exclusive, with the fee staged in thirds and a twelve-week replacement guarantee. We map the market, work the network first, and run personalised outreach in parallel so nothing is missed. You hear in week one whether the package will reach the people you have described. The assessed shortlist arrives in weeks three to four, scored against the brief with the reasoning shown, and the whole search runs three to six weeks from brief to accepted offer. Steering is weekly. More on the retained model here.

Contract and interim from a known bench. When a program needs a program director, an S/4HANA integration lead or an interim head of data by the end of the month, we go to people we have worked with before. The first assessed people reach you within a day or two of the brief. That is not a database search; it is people whose work we have seen.

Contingent where it fits. For delivery specialists and mid-level roles, we will work on an exclusive success-fee basis. Same assessment, same candidate care; the fee simply follows the outcome.

Whatever the model, every candidate who reaches you has had a structured conversation with the search partner about what they have actually built, decided and carried, not a CV screen. Assessed, not matched. And we stay in the picture after the start, with check-ins at 30, 60 and 90 days. If you are briefing a leadership role, this is how we like to be briefed.

Why Sydney clients come back

More than 90 per cent of Altura’s clients return for another search. The reasons they give are consistent. The shortlist was short and every person on it could do the job. They heard about problems early, including when the problem was their own brief or their own comp number. And the candidates they did not hire still spoke well of the process, which matters in a market this small. We would add one more: the people who reached them came through relationships built over close to 20 years, which is why they were not on anyone else’s list. We write about what we are seeing in that market in Insights.

Who we work with

Enterprise, mid-market, private equity-backed and high-growth businesses, mostly in financial services, superannuation, wealth, capital markets, professional services, technology and the public sector. Sydney is home; the network and the work are national.

Questions clients ask

How much does a technology recruitment agency charge in Sydney?

It depends on the model. For retained search the fee is fixed at the brief and staged in thirds across the engagement, on an exclusive basis, with a twelve-week replacement guarantee. Contingent work is a success fee, payable only when someone starts. Contract and interim terms are agreed before the first person is introduced. In every case the numbers are in writing before any work begins, so there is nothing to discover later.

How long does it take to recruit a senior technology role?

On a retained search, three to six weeks from brief to accepted offer, with an assessed shortlist in weeks three to four. For contract and interim roles, the first assessed people arrive within a day or two of the brief. The variable is the brief, not the market: a clear remit and an honest comp number move fastest. Here is how to brief a CIO or CTO search so it lands first time.

Do you recruit contract and interim technology people?

Yes. Program directors, platform and integration leads, interim technology and data leaders, change leads and specialist engineers, mostly from a bench of people we have worked with before. That is why the first assessed people reach you within a day or two rather than a fortnight, and why they tend to land well when they arrive.

What is the difference between recruitment and executive search?

Recruitment usually means advertising a role and screening the people who respond, often on a contingent basis with several agencies competing. Executive search means mapping the whole market for one seat, approaching the people who are not looking, assessing them against the brief and presenting a ranked shortlist, on an exclusive, retained basis. We do both, and we run the recruitment work with the same discipline as the search work.

 

Reading on technology leadership

Have a role like this one?

Most searches we run start with a conversation about the brief, not a job description. Twenty minutes on the phone is usually enough to tell you whether we are the right firm for it.

Brief a role Talk to us

Or call +61 468 179 457 or email info@alturatalent.com.au.