About Acorn: At Acorn PLMS, we are on a mission to transform the corporate learning experience. Our cutting-edge Performance Learning Management System (PLMS) software is powered by AI and designed to ensure that what people learn directly contributes to their exceptional performance in business. Corporate performance and learning needs a revolution, and Acorn PLMS is the antidote. We are the only solution that guides learners step by step to master the specific capabilities required for their roles, ultimately accelerating organisational performance.

Are you a hands-on coder who loves turning ideas into powerful software and thrives in collaborative, fast-moving teams? We’d love to hear from you!

We are open to individuals based in Canberra, Australia - this is an in-office role.

Role overview:

We are seeking a mid-level Software Developer with a strong passion for coding to join our team at our head office in Canberra, Australia. Your responsibilities will include developing both back-end and front-end features, ensuring cross-browser compatibility and optimising performance. You'll collaborate with the full-stack team to integrate components, maintain AWS infrastructure, and uphold security and compliance standards. Additionally, you will ensure that the codebase remains cohesive, modular, and secure while meeting Acorn’s operational and infrastructure needs - ultimately, contributing to the continuous growth and development of the Acorn platform.

5 key capabilities:

The best part… we use our Acorn software at Acorn. We believe in the power of our Managers and Staff being aligned on the 5 capabilities needed for each role, and the level that we expect for any given role, using our Acorn AI tool to streamline this consistently across our business. The 5 levels comprise Foundational, Developing, Proficient, Advanced and Expert.  

Here are the 5 capabilities for our mid-level Software Developer to give you an idea of what the role entails, and the level we are looking for from it:

1. Software design and implementation: Translate scoped requirements into clear designs and working software. Choose appropriate patterns within standards, write maintainable, tested code, and document decisions. Collaborate in code reviews, estimate and deliver increments via CI/CD, troubleshoot production issues, and refine solutions using metrics, ensuring performance, security, and reliability while contributing to team goals. At the proficient stage, you turn scoped requirements into robust, standards-based software. You write tested code, review peers' code, document decisions, release increments, use metrics to improve performance and reliability. 
2. Quality engineering and testing: Builds quality in from the start: writing clean, testable code, defining clear acceptance criteria, and automating unit and integration tests within CI/CD. Conducts exploratory and risk-based testing, triages defects, collaborates with QA to reproduce, fix and prevent issues, monitoring coverage and reliability to meet team delivery standards. At the proficient stage, you own quality end‑to‑end for your features. You set acceptance criteria, automate tests, focus on highest‑risk areas, and triage defects with QA to improve reliability. 
3. Task ownership and agile delivery: Owns assigned work from analysis to release, planning tasks, estimating, and delivering small, testable increments within sprint commitments. Applies agile practices, keeps stakeholders informed, clarifies acceptance criteria, manages dependencies, and flags risks early. Balances speed and quality to meet the Definition of Done and contribute to team velocity. At the developing stage, you own tasks end-to-end, delivering small, testable changes. You confirm scope, keep stakeholders informed, flag risks early, and balance speed with quality for steady delivery. 
4. Collaboration and stakeholder communication: Works effectively with product, design, QA and operations to progress tasks. Communicates clearly and in a timely manner: clarifies requirements, documents decisions, shares status, and raises risks with options. Seeks feedback, aligns on priorities, and negotiates trade-offs within scope. Uses agreed channels and meeting practices to keep stakeholders informed. At the proficient stage, you work with product, design, QA and operations. Clarify requirements, share status, raise risks with options via agreed channels. You negotiate in-scope trade-offs for smooth delivery. 
5. Operational awareness and security: Applies operational awareness to deliver secure, reliable software: follows change, release and incident processes; writes secure, well‑instrumented code; manages secrets and data privacy correctly; monitors services and triages issues; documents runbooks; flags risks and vulnerabilities early; collaborates with DevOps and SecOps to keep environments compliant and stable. At the foundational stage, you follow change and incident processes and write secure code with guidance. You manage secrets, monitor health, escalate risks, and support DevOps for stable services. 

Key responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable, secure, and high-performance features for the Acorn PLMS platform.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams — including Product, QA, and Design — to translate user and business needs into technical solutions.
• Contribute to both front-end (React, TypeScript) and back-end (PHP/Laravel) development, ensuring smooth integration and high code quality.
• Write clean, maintainable, and testable code, adhering to Acorn’s coding standards and CI/CD practices.
• Participate actively in sprint planning, retrospectives, and code reviews, providing feedback to peers and helping improve team practices.
• Apply operational awareness by monitoring and maintaining system health, addressing performance bottlenecks, and supporting incident response when needed.
• Ensure compliance with security and privacy standards, proactively identifying risks and contributing to preventative measures.
• Take ownership of assigned work, managing scope, progress, and delivery expectations in an agile environment.

Experience:

• Degree in Computer Science or in a related field 
• Minimum 2 years' experience as a full-stack engineer in cloud-native environments 
• Strong HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/TypeScript skills
• Good understanding of UX principles and responsive design
• Adept at writing unit and integration tests - TDD experience is a plus  
• PHP, Laravel and React experience is a plus 
• Experienced using containerised applications is also a plus  

Why join Acorn PLMS?

• Make a real impact: Build technology that helps over 1 million learners worldwide grow their capabilities and perform better at work.
• Grow with us: Develop your technical expertise using our own Acorn PLMS to guide your professional growth in a fast-scaling SaaS environment.
• Collaborate and innovate: Work alongside passionate engineers in our Canberra office, where teamwork, creativity, and continuous improvement drive everything we do.

Location:

We are open to individuals based in Canberra, Australia. We are an office-first company, meaning we work from our local offices the majority (if not all) of the time. We want to create cool stuff with great people, and we know from experience that is best done through daily moments like the coffee run, walk to grab lunch, or quick huddles. Being able to capitalise on this is key to our ongoing success and a large part of the reason we can work at the pace we do. Please note candidates will need to be in commuting distance to our office based in the CBD.

Applicants must have full working rights in Australia to be considered for this role. Unfortunately we are unable to provide visa sponsorship at this time.

Our recruitment process:

Acorn is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and respected. We are an equal opportunities employer and welcome applications from all qualified candidates. We aim to ensure that our recruitment process is fair and accessible to everyone and encourage candidates to request any accommodations needed during the application or interview stages.

About Working at Acorn:

Acorn is the hub for learning and performance for over 3 million active learners globally. The work you do — whether that’s writing lines of code, designing the layout of a dashboard, or talking to customers — helps real people grow not just professionally, but personally. In the space of 10 years, we’ve grown to a global platform in the heart of many major organisations’ ecosystems.

There’s still so much more to do, and we need people who are keen to help us journey into the next phase on board! And since we’re still growing, there’s so much you can learn on that journey with us. To find out more about life at Acorn, our Values and working with us, check out our website at https://acorn.works and see our Life At Acorn video here! https://youtu.be/2BGUk-n3FrQ?si=U_sS1Y5ZSP0tNtZW