Demanding work: Australia’s top five most sought-after jobs

Melbourne tech company Bodd’s technical program manager Camille Zapata has one of the most sought-after jobs in Australia and says she feels lucky to be able to work in the role.

According to LinkedIn’s 2023 Jobs on the Rise list, released in January, technical program manager, clinical exercise physiologist, site reliability engineer, sales development representative and platform engineer were the top five (out of 25) job titles that have been experiencing the highest growth in Australia over the past five years, from January 2019 through to July 2023.

The data was gathered by LinkedIn Economic Graph researchers who examined millions of jobs started by LinkedIn members from January 1 2018 to July 31 2022. Highly technical IT jobs dominated the top five, with COVID border closures and the rise of remote work creating a scarcity of top talent.

Zapata, who is also Bodd’s head of product, says the role of technical program manager is one that fits a creative solutionist like herself.

“It’s a humbling industry because it’s a career anyone can pursue regardless of background, whether it’s technical, creative, support, or sales, etc. Because the success of a product relies on the teams that build it, I’m always in the middle of collaborating with different kinds of experts and it is so important to make sure I communicate effectively with everybody,” she says.

“My exposure to a range of technologies and openness to learning and understanding things outside of my comfort zone have helped a lot in my day-to-day work. Because of this kind of skillset, it’s a great role for someone who doesn’t specialise but has the ability to easily translate ideas from creative into technical, and vice-versa while communicating effectively with teams of diverse backgrounds. 

“There will always be demand for people with a problem-solving mindset because that’s how we innovate and come up with new ideas, create new products, or improve existing ones.”

Zapata says her role entails understanding the problem space Bodd is solving, collaborating with clients, creative, and technical teams to create solutions. 

“Most of the time I am investigating problems and experimenting with various possible solutions to find the best experience for our customers,” she says.

“There are a lot of discussions with colleagues who are experts in different fields, both technical and non-technical, and I work somewhat like a translator for both teams. I often make proposals that can show not only what the solution looks like but also how it works. I merge various perspectives into product features, with the goal of making complex and time-consuming workflows of our customers more simple and easier to manage.”

Platform engineer ‘driven by a challenge’

According to Linkedin’s data, platform engineer is the fifth fastest-growing job title that made the list.

Bodd’s platform engineer and head of software Nick Mulder says it’s great the industry is realising how important it is to get software right. 

“I am driven by a challenge and was looking for a big project to sink my teeth into that I could lead from the ground up — hence why I was attracted to working at Bodd,” he explains.

“Being in demand is one thing, but finding a company that gives you an opportunity and autonomy to work on the types of projects you want to is another.

“At Bodd, we make scanners which capture anthropometric body and wellness data, and then analyse this data in our cloud platform to provide value to our clients — this could be as simple as a size recommendation for a garment, or a wellness outcome. I am responsible for the development and operation of this platform.

“My work includes working with our product team to define and plan new feature development, the hardware team for workflow and technology optimisation, as well as within my own team on the platform itself — keeping everything optimised, secure, and fit for purpose.”

Finding quality talent

Bodd co-founder Dave McLaughlin says he wasn’t surprised to have two out of the top five most in-demand job roles working at Bodd.

“Running a tech company, this is not uncommon, especially over the last few years,” he tells SmartCompany. 

“There has been a huge software and technology skilled worker shortage over the last few years, particularly at the more senior end, but we are starting to see that change. 

“With significant layoffs (after incredible hiring sprees) by the big tech companies globally, the pool of available quality talent is finally starting to normalise. In our situation, though, we have always looked for people that align to our company values and ultimately believe in our vision, so we have always been able to attract incredible people, regardless of the demand and industry conditions.

McLaughlin says the people who work at Bodd are everything.

“We really are incredibly selective about who we bring into this tight-knit group. From the start, we have deliberately focused on hiring really senior people across Bodd that can be counted on for delivering. While we’re still a relatively small team, we punch well above our weight – and that comes from having a really solid, talented group of people that are all rallying around our company goals,” he said.

Bodd co-founders Dave McLaughlin (left) and Rob Fisher. Source: supplied.

The transformation of work

CEO of management consultancy ASPL Group Kris Grant believes the five jobs at the top of LinkedIn’s list are in high demand due to transformation work.

“If we take the IT roles first, we’ve seen such a boom when it comes to technical resources across many different disciplines because we still have a lot of transformation work to do,” she says.

“If you think about the pandemic, we didn’t have access to not only international resources, but also with the border restrictions it was very challenging to, for example, allow those people to even cross-collaborate face to face.”

Grant says this demand means people looking to secure their start at one of the top five jobs will get a great opportunity.

“It’s an incredible opportunity for people coming in because they can really think about it before they start,” she says.

“For example, what type of employer they really want to work for or whether their employer’s value proposition really resonates with them. 

“They can really start to think about things that remain relevant or resonate with them, whether it’s flexibility, whether it’s the type of technology, whether it’s the values of the organisation that  are really appealing. I feel like they’ve got a significant opportunity to do that.”