--- title: 'Psychology Researcher, Talent at Maincode' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/psychology-researcher-talent-maincode-melbourne-a14qj2zc6b6c' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-11' --- # Psychology Researcher, Talent at Maincode - **Company:** Maincode - **Location:** Melbourne, Australia - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-09-09 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/maincode/eb397d1b-e7ef-4304-9f42-05c08bb08a09 ## Job description ## About Maincode Maincode makes Matilda, an Australian-made AI stack we run end-to-end, from tin to token. We operate our own infrastructure here in Australia, train and maintain our own frontier models, and run multiple surfaces on top of them, including chat, coding, and APIs. Everything we ship is built on capability we control ourselves. We are looking for someone mission-focused to help us build the strongest team in Australia. You should be deeply curious, possess sharp judgment, and have exceptionally high standards for talent. ## The Role We value autonomy, speed, and high agency. The best way to understand this position is to review our work, understand our technical footprint, and determine how you can elevate our hiring baseline. We keep our bar exceptionally high and move with speed. If you are rigorous, self-directed, and thrive in an ambitious, engineering-led culture, you will do well here. ## Qualifications & Expectations - Psychology Background: Required. Our hiring framework relies heavily on psychological principles to accurately assess candidate capability, behavioral alignment, and team dynamics. - Balanced Interview Load: You will spend roughly 2–3 hours per day conducting structured interviews, reserving the remainder of your time for strategic sourcing, pipeline development, and candidate assessment. - Strong Signal: Ability to quickly evaluate high-performing technical talent and communicate direct, unvarnished feedback. Details - Location: Melbourne, VIC - Type: Full-time, permanent - Remuneration: Competitive salary (commensurate with experience) + super + equity ## 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 - [Talent Sourcer](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-sourcer-maincode-melbourne-1y96x7ezwa0f) — Melbourne, 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 - [Marketing Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/marketing-lead-maincode-melbourne-ejevmh3kfx3n) — Melbourne, Australia - [Forward-Deployed AI Engineer, Government and National Security](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-ai-engineer-government-and-national-security-maincode-canberra-hxax53shgchj) — Canberra, Australia - [Junior Commercial Counsel (AI & Technology)](https://feeny.ai/job/junior-commercial-counsel-ai-technology-maincode-melbourne-axbjnskc6y8h) — Melbourne, Australia - [Talent Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/talent-engineer-maincode-australia-kcyvhegegmtk) — Australia - [Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-maincode-seattle-8wcyg274fjcr) — Seattle, WA - [AI Research Resident](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-research-resident-maincode-australia-ketgdbs6fjy8) — Australia - [Research Engineer – Matilda](https://feeny.ai/job/research-engineer-matilda-maincode-melbourne-37p38pkx99xk) — Melbourne, Australia - [AI Software Engineer (Back End)](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-software-engineer-back-end-maincode-melbourne-nffdzzvrsdqk) — Melbourne, Australia