--- title: 'Behavioural Researcher at Maincode' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/behavioural-researcher-maincode-melbourne-a14qj2zc6b6c' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-10-16' --- # Behavioural Researcher at Maincode - **Company:** Maincode - **Location:** Melbourne, Australia - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-09 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-16 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maincode/eb397d1b-e7ef-4304-9f42-05c08bb08a09 ## Job description ## About Maincode Maincode is an AI research and engineering company. We build Matilda, Australia's large language model, trained, served and deployed here in Melbourne. We run our own GPUs in local data centres and we build everything above them: the racks, the training and serving systems, and the products that run on them. ## About the Role The hardest problem at Maincode is not the tech. It is finding the small number of people who can build a frontier AI company. You will join the talent team at Maincode and own a piece of that problem. Your job is to understand people. Personality, motivation, belief, mindset: what someone is actually made of, and whether it is what a team like this needs. You will make reads on real candidates, and you will rebuild the way we make them: the interviews, the instruments, and the agentic systems the pipeline runs on. Nothing about our process is sacred. If a stage does not predict, you kill it and build something that does. Maincode is built on a small number of obsessive people working on hard problems. We are direct with each other, the bar does not move, and the team is the product, so the calls we make about people are the most important calls we make. You should recognise that way of working and want more of it. You do not need a background in talent. If anything, we prefer that you do not have one. ## What You'll Do Read candidates: their work, their words, their rooms; produce the judgments the team hires from. Design and test the instruments: interview formats, screens, rubrics. Treat the pipeline as a running experiment and follow the results. Build with AI. The pipeline is agentic end to end. You extend it, not just operate it. Work day to day with talent and the founders, and calibrate your reads against how people actually turn out. You Might Be a Fit If You are deeply fascinated by understanding human behaviour. You may have studied psychology, or not. You read well. You understand, far better than others, why someone does what they do. You understand and build systems. You hold a high bar. You are comfortable learning deeply technical things. ## About Maincode ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Maincode is an Australian AI research and product company building Matilda, an intelligent assistant that understands context, learns your workflow, and helps you move faster and more safely. - **Entity Type**: Private (Bootstrapped – no external funding rounds disclosed) - **Headquarters**: Melbourne, Australia - **Founded**: Not publicly disclosed (recent high-growth signals suggest founding around 2024–2025) - **Founders**: Not publicly disclosed (Dave L. is listed as Chief Coder; founder status unclear) ## Core Business - **Primary industries**: AI research, applied intelligence, product development for enterprise and knowledge workers. - **Target customers**: B2B (teams and individuals needing a nuanced, safe AI assistant), researchers, and developers. - **Mission**: “AI that earns trust in the real world, to move humans forward.” Focus on safe, transparent, and helpful AI systems. ## Products & Services - **Matilda** (flagship product, private beta 2026): AI assistant with deep contextual understanding across long conversations, multi-step reasoning (inspectable steps), proactive but permission-asking behavior, learning of user workflows over time. Built and hosted in Australia, aligned with Australian privacy standards. - **Maincoder** (open-source 1B parameter model, released Dec 2025): Code generation and transformation model optimized for low latency and cost. - **AI Research Residency** (3–6 month paid program): For late-stage PhD students and early-career researchers. Provides access to Maincode’s GPU cluster, infrastructure, and direct collaboration with the core team; aims to publish at top-tier venues. - **Inference infrastructure (MC-2 cluster)**: High‑availability, sub-200ms global latency inference using custom batching, model sharding, dynamic routing (CUDA, Kubernetes, Terraform, GCP, vLLM, AMD Instinct GPUs). - **Context Engine & Action Layer**: Proprietary frameworks for long-context reasoning and agentic tool-use/sandboxed execution (turning Matilda from chatbot to agent). - **Eval Suite**: Internal evaluation framework for model capability, safety alignment, task completion (10K+ scenarios, automated regression). ## Market Standing - **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed. - **Key Metric**: Total funding not disclosed (appears bootstrapped). Headcount: 17 employees (+360% YoY). Monthly website visits: ~14,071 (+116.3% monthly, +56,184% yearly). - **Notable Investors/Partners**: - Demonstrating first agentic payment transaction in Australia with **Mastercard** at the Australian Open 2026. - Benchmarking study with **Heidi Health** (cloud vs on‑premise inference). - **Growth Signals**: - 10 active job postings (quarterly increase +42.9%, yearly +150%). - LinkedIn followers: 4,468 (+315.6% yearly). - Traffic growth (56,184% yearly) and strong inbound interest from US (72%) and Australia (28%). - Partnership with Mastercard for a live agentic payment demo signals enterprise traction. ## Competitive Advantages - **Australian privacy by design**: Infrastructure and model behaviour aligned with Australian standards; transparency and user control emphasized. - **Research‑to‑production pipeline**: Tight integration between frontier research and a shipped product (Matilda). The research residency directly feeds into product improvements. - **Agentic safety**: Multi-step reasoning with visible steps, permission‑asking before action, and sandboxed execution – differentiating from black‑box chatbots. - **Own GPU hardware**: MC-2 cluster (AMD Instinct) allows full control over inference latency and cost. - **Talent magnet**: Small, high‑agency team attracts PhD‑level researchers with promise of publications and access to SOTA compute. ## Strategic Focus - Scale Matilda’s user base (currently private beta) and move toward general availability. - Deepen research in safety & alignment, long‑context reasoning, multimodal perception, agent orchestration, and model efficiency. - Expand enterprise partnerships (evidenced by Mastercard, Heidi Health). - Continue growing the team across engineering and research (10 open roles across infrastructure, product, and research). ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: “Small team doing hard things.” High ownership, move fast, ship without permission. Values: ownership, gradient (fast learning), range, speed, taste, humility. No ego, mission‑first. - **Work environment**: On‑site in Melbourne, Australia (some hybrid/remote possible with visits). Emphasis on craft and shipping. - **Research perks**: For researchers – paid residency, ability to publish at top venues (NeurIPS, etc.), access to dedicated GPU cluster, direct line to production. - **Engineering focus**: Modern tech stack (Python, PyTorch, CUDA, Kubernetes, Terraform, GCP); engineers work on inference infrastructure, model training, safety evals, and product features. - **Growth opportunity**: From 17 people to planned expansion; early employees can shape the direction of the product and research agenda. ## Sources 1. [maincode.com](https://maincode.com/) – Company website, product description, culture page 2. [LinkedIn – Maincode](https://au.linkedin.com/company/maincodehq) – Headcount, growth metrics, partner announcements 3. [Built In – Maincode Careers](https://builtin.com/company/maincode) – Culture summary and active job listings 4. [AI Directory – Maincode Pty Ltd](https://aidirectory.industry.gov.au/organisation/maincode-pty-ltd) – Business area and location verification 5. [maincode.com/platform](https://maincode.com/platform) – Detailed product and research area descriptions ## Other roles at Maincode - [Forward Deployed Engineer (Enterprise)](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-engineer-enterprise-maincode-melbourne-qxahp9fm49vh) — Melbourne, Australia - [Account Director](https://feeny.ai/job/account-director-maincode-australia-fn94ranbcqrg) — Australia - [Data Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/data-engineer-maincode-australia-5e07rgq3nak0) — Australia - [Graduate Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/graduate-software-engineer-maincode-melbourne-zb15wrcbrp5d) — Melbourne, Australia - [Investment Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/investment-associate-maincode-melbourne-wqfbfym36f7s) — Melbourne, Australia - [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-maincode-melbourne-8pdhztj4jdk1) — Melbourne, Australia - [Digital Marketing Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/digital-marketing-specialist-maincode-melbourne-aesffjn2mm6h) — Melbourne, Australia - [Talent Sourcer](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-sourcer-maincode-australia-1y96x7ezwa0f) — Australia - [Forward-Deployed AI Engineer, Justice and Community Safety](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-ai-engineer-justice-and-community-safety-maincode-melbourne-72q4z3ny2v3d) — Melbourne, Australia - [Commercial Counsel (AI & Technology)](https://feeny.ai/job/commercial-counsel-ai-technology-maincode-melbourne-axbjnskc6y8h) — Melbourne, Australia