David Cumberland

Thinking about moving from perm to contract in the NZ dev market? Here’s how it actually works 👇 How people really land their first contract? -> Recruiters they already know -> Ex-employers calling them back Cold applying almost never works. Who contracting actually works for? 👌 -> 5–10 years’ experience -> Strong backend/ full stack engineers -> Auckland enterprise = .NET land Think: -> C# / ASP.NET / .NET Core -> Microservices -> Azure -> Middleware & integrations (RabbitMQ, IBM MQ service bus, etc.) -> Not heaps, but a decent amount of mobile development. Large enterprise and banking environments in Auckland are consistently contractor-heavy in this stack. Timing (this is the most important bit) ⏲️ -> Best time: straight after redundancy, immediately available -> Worst time: quitting a safe perm role in a tight market hoping something turns up. Money 💴 💵 💶 -> Typical rates clearing: $80 –$125/hr -> These rates usually require sole contractor setup -> PAYE costs more for the employer → noticeably lower take-home -> Expect 4–10 interviews a year as normal churn If the market slows, you can be without work for 6–12 months. (I have someone on my books who has contracted for 12 years within NZ enterprises, and unemployed since 2024) P.S. - Contracting pays more because someone has to carry the risk. That someone is you ❤️ If you are considering a move like that, come chat.

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using System; using System.Threading; class Program { static void Main() { // Wellington .NET hype machine var chant = "𝗗𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗟𝗢𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦! "; var hype = 1; var maxHype = 4; for (int i = 1; i <= maxHype; i++) { Console.ForegroundColor = i switch { 1 => ConsoleColor.White, 2 => ConsoleColor.Cyan, 3 => ConsoleColor.Yellow, _ => ConsoleColor.Red }; var line = string.Concat(new string[4].Select(_ => chant)).TrimEnd(); Console.WriteLine(line.ToUpper()); Console.WriteLine($"Sweat level: {new string('💧', i)}"); Console.WriteLine(); Thread.Sleep(500 - (i * 80)); // getting increasingly hyped up hype++; } Console.ResetColor(); Console.WriteLine("Alright, now the actual ad:\n"); var ad = @" For the next six months, I’m going to be head-deep in the .NET market in Wellington. 🤘 I’m working with a bunch of SaaS teams right now: some scaling fast, others modernising older systems, all doing interesting work with C#, .NET, Azure, and API-heavy products. There’s a real mix of opportunities out there, from early-stage teams to established SaaS businesses, but the common thread is the same: they want engineers who enjoy solving hard problems and shaping the way products get built. If you’re a .NET engineer and want to know what’s happening across the market: who’s hiring, what stacks they’re using, where the best challenges are, I'd love to talk. Take a squizz at the one I've just posted today: https://lnkd.in/eEbhpqwb Feel free to get in touch if you want to chat about what’s out there. 📥 "; Console.WriteLine(ad); Console.WriteLine("#dotnet #csharp #wellingtontech #developers #hiring"); } }

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The $175K DevOps Unicorn Myth Is Killing Your Team Confession that might sting: I keep seeing brilliant DevOps engineers walk away. Not because of money. Not because of tech. Because they’re asked to be everything to everyone. No? The brutal truth in NZ right now: We’re asking DevOps to be: • Kubernetes wizards • Security experts • Cost-cutting pros • On-call heroes All for one salary. Then we act surprised when they burn out or jump to Australia for 40% more. What’s actually broken: • 88% of job ads demand Terraform. • But only 15% of candidates have real production-level Terraform skills. So everyone chases the same tiny pool of “perfect” unicorns. Meanwhile, strong engineers who could learn in 3 months with mentorship get overlooked. The retention pattern I hear from tech leaders: They describe their DevOps team as a “revolving door.” Common reasons? → Roles written for breadth, not depth → 24/7 on-call with no backup → No growth paths What the smart companies do differently: 1. Stop hunting unicorns. One NZ bank hired a Python-strong engineer with basic K8s and trained them up. Retention jumped to 18 months vs the 11-month average. 2. Fix on-call. An Auckland fintech built proper SRE practices (error budgets, post-mortems). Turnover dropped 60% in 6 months. 3. Create specialization paths. Let engineers choose: Infra, Security, or Platform. People stay when they can go deep, not just wide. The economics driving engineers away: • 28% of DevOps pros in NZ are considering overseas moves. • Australia is absorbing 90% of ICT migrants with salaries at AUD $180–220K (vs NZ $130–150K). But it’s not only about money. It’s about escaping the “do-everything” trap. The opportunity hiding in plain sight: Instead of chasing unicorns: • Tap platform engineers moving from dev • Tap sysadmins ready to learn IaC • Tap cloud architects hungry for DevOps These hires + training = loyal teams. Challenge for you: Look at your DevOps JD. If it lists more than 3 skill buckets, you’re part of the problem. Fix is simple: • Pick 2–3 core techs that matter most • Build growth paths • Train instead of demanding perfection • Implement real SRE practices Why I’m sharing this: Because I’m tired of watching brilliant engineers burn out. And of hearing “we can’t find good DevOps people” on repeat. The talent is here. The demand is real. The approach is broken. Want to see which Auckland companies have cracked DevOps retention? → DM me “retention” and I’ll share what they’re doing. Because the best strategy isn’t chasing unicorns. It’s creating environments where good engineers become great ones. P.S. If you’re a #DevOps engineer nodding along: you deserve better than being “everything.” Those better roles exist, you just need to know where to look. ♻️ If this hit home, repost so more leaders stop chasing unicorns and start building real DevOps teams.

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Upgrade Your React / Next.js Applications - Vulnerability (CVE-2025-66478) Many small and large companies across Australia are rapidly adopting React and Next.js. If you're currently using React, now is the time to ensure your application is upgraded and secure. Upgrading can be costly for large organisations—especially those with multiple micro Next.js applications across different teams. Development, testing, and deployment efforts all add up. However, strong automation (CI/CD, E2E Test) and the use of monorepo tooling (Turborepo, Nx) can significantly reduce these costs and streamline the upgrade process. Affected Next.js Versions Applications using React Server Components with the App Router are affected when running: Next.js 15.x Next.js 16.x Next.js 14.3.0-canary.77 and later canary releases Next.js 13.x, Next.js 14.x stable, Pages Router applications, and the Edge Runtime are not affected. More information: https://lnkd.in/gs_YMjPn

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DDD Melbourne speaker spotlight: Callum Whyte Failure will happen. In software, that’s not a risk—it’s a guarantee. Code breaks, servers crash, power goes out – yet building software that is designed to fail gracefully isn't always front-of-mind. Resilient systems don’t avoid failure… they’re designed to fail gracefully. Callum Whyte will walk us through how to design and build real-world systems that keep working when things go wrong. Expect a practical, engineering-first deep dive into: – Handling failure at every layer – Redundancy, circuit breakers & automated failover – Architectural tradeoffs: latency, consistency & degraded modes – Building reliability into team processes and mindset – Using health checks, OpenTelemetry & stress testing tools to stay ahead of issues This session is packed with tools, patterns, and techniques you can bring back to your team immediately. Learn more about Callum's session: https://lnkd.in/gCmg-8sU Grab your tickets to DDD Melbourne now before they sell out! https://lnkd.in/gC4yyEbF

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Too many teams are still chasing DevOps unicorns. The truth? Retention comes from clear roles, growth paths, and building environments where good engineers can become great. Here’s how smart companies are fixing it... 

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🔥𝐓𝐎𝐏 5 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐈𝐧 𝐀𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝐇𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬🔥 I’ve worked with hundreds of software engineers, placing them in startup, scale-up, and enterprise teams here in Australia. People don't always quit because of their manager, but when they do, I'm on the frontline, so I get their uncensored thoughts and feedback about their management team. Here's the TOP 5 frustrations I hear on repeat, and how engineering leaders can potentially avoid them: 1. Invisible Engineer Syndrome The team does the work, but they get no credit. ➡️ Don't take the spotlight or forget about them. ✅ Give credit and praise your team every opportunity you get. 2. "Just A Quick...." You’re Devs are in deep flow, solving problems, and you drop in with “just a quick....” ➡️ Don't interrupt focus for 'quick' tasks. ✅ Protect your team's focus as if it were sacred. 3. The Meeting Vortex You book meetings to plan more meetings, and stand-ups last way too long. ➡️ Don't fill calendars and stop your team from being productive. ✅ Audit meetings and cancel or downsize as many as possible! 4. “Just A Button....” You're non-technical (or a bit out-of-touch) and expect tasks “shouldn’t take long.” ➡️ Don't make unrealistic promises to stakeholders that negatively impact your team. ✅ Ask your team before you commit, and trust and respect their judgment. 5. The Dangling Carrot. 🥕 You promise promotions, pay rises and new projects, but never deliver them. ➡️ Don't make false promises or lie about shiny greenfield work coming up. ✅ Be clear about feedback, promotion targets, and if it's BAU, just say it's BAU. Number 5 is the most common one I come across. Does anyone have any others that they would add to this list? #SoftwareEngineering #Leadership #EngineeringManager

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At the risk of sounding arrogant, I'm going to write this post bluntly because the point is that important. I've spent about 8 years building software engineering teams in startups. I'd argue I'm one of the best in Australia at it - hiring software engineers and assembling fantastic startup engineering teams is something that I really excel at. And yet, even from that starting position, over the last 6 months I've been relearning - almost from the ground up - what a good software engineer is. That will continue for at least the next year. If you haven't meaningfully changed how you assess - or even define - what a good software engineer is in the past 6 months, your definitions and assessments are outdated. Startups are in pole position to adapt and carve out an advantage. But that also means they'll be punished most for failing to adapt, and you need to be adapting now. This is only half the problem though. When you do hire engineers who are excellent by the new definition, they require a company that's ready and set up to receive them - and most aren't. That means product, design, and the entire roadmap and the speed in which it's executed changing to accommodate what's now possible in engineering teams. It's a business-level shift, affecting how the entire company operates, not just a change to your hiring process. This has knock-on effects to funding, growth expectations, salaries, metrics, and more. Everything is changing, and it's changing now. It will continue to change, probably even more rapidly. But this isn't about predictions. It's already happening. First movers realised this 12 months ago. I realised it 6 months ago. The vast majority are yet to realise it. You should be realising it by the end of this post.

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Sidekick Upgraded: From Assistant to Operator 🤖 Shopify Sidekick evolves beyond reactive suggestions. In Winter ’26, Sidekick becomes proactive, surfacing high‑impact insights right when you or your merchant needs them — no more hunting for data. Inside Retail Australia Highlights: • Sidekick Pulse: Smart, personalized next steps based on store data. Inside Retail Australia • Generates custom internal tools and automation workflows from natural language prompts. Shopify • Reusable skills for repeatable tasks save time across projects. #shopify #ecommerce #shopifystore #dropshipping #shopifydropshipping #shopifyseller #smallbusiness #ecommercebusiness #shopifyexperts #digitalmarketing #fashion #entrepreneur #onlineshopping #marketing #business #amazon #etsy #shopifyexpert #onlinebusiness #wordpress #shopifybusiness #shopifypartners #shopifytips #shopsmall #shopifypicks #webdesign #shopping #onlinestore #shopifywebsite #shopifydeveloper

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🧩 🇦🇺 Hard truth for growing Australian businesses 🧩 Technology problems rarely appear as big failures. They show up as everyday friction: 🧩 Disconnected systems 🔧 Recurring small tech issues ⏳ Slow tools & workflows 📉 Hidden operational delays Nothing looks seriously broken. Yet productivity quietly suffers. Growth feels harder. Teams move slower. Operations feel heavier. Most businesses don’t need more software. They need: ✅ Stable systems ✅ Faster technical execution ✅ Reliable ongoing support Because business momentum is fragile — and friction compounds fast. 🔗 Link in comments #AustralianBusiness 🇦🇺 #AustralianSMEs #BusinessGrowth #ITSupport #BusinessOperations #DigitalInfrastructure

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Blueprint Finance NZ knew their WordPress site wasn't a long-term solution — slow load times, generic templates, and ongoing security maintenance. So they made the switch to a static website built on CloudCannon. No more plugin chaos. No more generic templates. No more “niggling stress.” “With WordPress, even if you’re comfortable maintaining it, there’s a niggling stress that isn’t there with CloudCannon.” — Timmy Brown, Head of Marketing Now? ⚡ A website that's 10x easier to edit 🔒 Zero need for maintenance 🎯 A focused, professional website that increased weekly customer leads Full story: https://lnkd.in/g9hUhdtG

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Tomorrow I'll be speaking at DDD Melbourne for the first time, giving a talk about Platform Engineering in the age of GenAI. In this talk, we’ll explore how platform engineering and generative AI can work together to improve developer experience, if you get the foundations right. We’ll look at common organisational and cultural challenges that limit productivity, and how to start addressing them with simple, practical steps. From there, we’ll show how “everything-as-code” patterns and AI-assisted tooling can accelerate platform maturity and reduce friction across teams. Hope to see you there! #DDDMelb

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Stop forcing your business into someone else's software. We work with Australian business leaders running 100-400 person companies who are tired of generic SaaS that doesn't fit their unique operations. You've probably tried it – expensive subscriptions that promise everything but deliver nothing specific to YOUR workflows. Here's the truth: off-the-shelf software is built for everyone, which means it's optimized for no one. What if you could have AI systems custom-built for YOUR exact business processes? Systems that: ✓ Actually work with your specific workflows (not against them) ✓ Keep your data under YOUR control – no vendor lock-in ✓ Cost a fraction of those bloated SaaS subscriptions ✓ Give you a genuine competitive edge over competitors stuck with generic tools Bespoke AI solutions aren't a luxury anymore – they're the difference between companies that scale efficiently and those that get bogged down in processes that don't fit. We've built the Performance-First Framework specifically for Australian businesses like yours. Custom-built systems that eliminate wasted human capital, streamline operations, and actually deliver ROI. Ready to build something that actually works for your business? Let's talk. #AustralianBusiness #AITransformation #DigitalTransformation #BusinessTech #SME #CustomSoftware #PerformanceManagement #AustralianTech

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How well does ChatGPT know you, I asked it to describe me - no prompts. Here's what it said. You’re a recruiter who specialises in .NET and related tech roles, working closely with clients across Australia, building high-performing engineering teams. You’ve got a sharp sense for quality and authenticity, both in people and in communication. You prefer things to sound natural, not corporate or over-polished, and you write like you talk, conversational, confident and to the point. You balance professionalism with a human touch. You’re detail-oriented about job ads (right down to tone, punctuation, and phrasing), but also have a bit of fun with your work, adding things like emojis or hashtags when it fits (#TeamDotNet being a favourite). Outside of work, you’re practical and hands-on, tackling home fixes, playing soccer regularly, and recently navigating life with a young baby. You seem down-to-earth, with a sense of humour and a realistic approach to juggling it all. Nailed it 10/10.......... #TeamDotNet

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Strategically, it appears to more sensible for Google Maps and Waze to be under Waymo. All mobility related services, maps information update and distribution, mobility related AI, and operational efficiency will aligned and can be centralised.

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I was so sad to see the breaking news from the AFR flash up on my phone yesterday at 9am that Atlassian were cutting jobs. Some close connection of ours were affected by the cuts. Probably others out there too, so I sincerely hope people are doing ok today! ❤️ I’m here because I wanted to try and add some light to your feeds, it can seem like doom and gloom when scrolling. Atlassian’s, the Australian tech scene will help you land on your feet! You will only hear of the negatives, or scroll past some BS piece of contrived nonsense from bigger recruitment businesses that frankly don’t have their ear to the ground in the tech scene. The big search firms losing revenue, losing recruiters. Yes they are, because recruitment has changed. The best people will leave because clients and candidates want to work with specialists. Some context: We’re a team of 9, all hands on billers. We’re based in Sydney, but we place people all over Australia. AI, Data, DevOps, Sovereign AI, Engineering, Dynamics. We work in these areas. We work with clients that are the top consumer apps globally, fortune 200’s, ASX listed, to start ups and scale ups. Our year has started slowly due to all of Australia being on holidays for two months in December / January and completely shutting down as usual. We expect that. But momentum is there. Our permanent placements are now starting to stabilise, and processes aren’t as long and drawn out as they would have been when everyone is on holidays. BUT we need to talk about contracts. We’re seeing a huge surge in contract opportunities. For context, our revenue last year was split 62% / 38% in favour of permanent. The Nuage Technology Group team are all Principal level headhunters who do dual desks. But they focus on a model that suits the permanent style of recruitment (relationship building, working niches within niches, etc) But this year, we are trending the other way. And this quarter, the contracts side is set to finish as our best one in the last 4 quarters. A lot more in bound work being called in now from clients. An example being - We had a contract called in yesterday to Jordan D'Aguilar. 12 months, a niche area within the Microsoft suite. The client needed to move quickly. - Email from client came through at 2pm. - The client brief happened at 3pm. - Interview at 5pm - The candidate now starts Monday. That was the 6th contract placed this week. And that is not just us. Lots of my friends recruitment businesses are the same. So, if you are someone that has been affected by lay offs, there is light at the end of tunnel. Better days are ahead. There is work out there. My advice would be to get yourself learning and using something like Claude everyday as a minimum. Maybe build an agentic you while you have some spare time. Get that on your CV and on the first paragraph. If anyone wants a chat or a coffee, feel free to reach out to me or anyone in our team.

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Digital access is quietly becoming one of the biggest risks for Australian SMBs. As cloud apps, SaaS tools, APIs, and remote work expand, access spreads fast — often without review. Former staff keep logins. Permissions pile up. Accountability disappears. That’s digital access sprawl — and it increases security, compliance, and operational risk. Here’s how SMBs can regain control without slowing productivity: ✅ Apply least privilege access ✅ Centralise identity management ✅ Automate onboarding and offboarding ✅ Review access regularly — including admin and API access Strong access control isn’t about restriction. It’s about visibility, accountability, and protecting your business as it grows. 🔗 Read the full blog here: https://lnkd.in/gBgwEkAE #itcompany #techsupport #itsupport #techexpert #itservices #businesstech #itconsulting #techsavvy #bit365 #sydney

“White Collar Dole Bludgers” Ah yes, the great Australian software industry. Ten years, billions in tax rebates, and what do we get? Another SaaS dashboard to track who’s taking a shit in the office kitchen. They’ve perfected the art of the sit-down hustle: No pitches, no risk, no product — just a row of ergonomic chairs lined with compliant butts, milking R&D tax incentives like it’s Centrelink. Deliverables? Not software. Jira tickets. Whole companies exist as a screenshot of “In Progress” columns, shuffled around to justify a tax write-off. Innovation? A browser extension for “synergy” and a Slackbot that says “Happy Friday.” Ground-breaking. Truly. And the best bit? They sneer at actual dole bludgers while they themselves are the ultimate parasites — code bludgers. Just like a kid still living at home at 40, they’re propped up by the government teat, chewing corporate cud, waiting for Atlassian to buy them out. Australia doesn’t have a software industry. It has a compliance industry with GitHub accounts. #WhiteCollarDoleBludgers #AussieSatire #SoftwareWelfare #JiraTicketEconomy #BrowserBludgerware #TaxRebateParasites #ComplianceCoding #RDTaxRort #CorporateCud #BludgerExposed