What is Lyra - For our engineers

Driven by purpose. Defined by people.

Lyra started with a simple act. A group of engineers helped their roommates build a product from scratch. Six weeks later that product launched. Shortly after, it raised over $2M in a pre-seed round. That company was Paraform. And that moment was the reason Lyra exists.

Since then we have become a collective of top-tier engineers from across Australia, partnering with 50+ startups across Silicon Valley to build, design, and ship products that matter. Our mission is simple: build, teach, and grow.

This is what it looks like to work here.

The level of engineering you will be exposed to

At Lyra you are working alongside some of the most talented young engineers in Australia, building products for some of the best founders in Silicon Valley. The clients you are deployed into are backed by YC, a16z, and the names that matter in venture. The work is meaningful, the pressure is real, and the engineers you are doing it alongside are genuinely some of the best in the country.

What you actually learn

There is a version of engineering that is comfortable. You pick up tickets, you wait for review, you ship on a fortnightly cycle, and you do it again.

Then there is startup engineering. Execution velocity that does not wait for perfect conditions. Product taste that gets sharpened by real user feedback. Communication with founders and CTOs that is direct, tight, and high-signal. The ability to pick up a codebase you have never seen and make a meaningful contribution by end of day.

This is what Lyra trains you for, and what most engineers never get exposed to, regardless of how long they have been in the industry.

Who makes it through

Our applicant pool is already pre-vetted, and fewer than 3% of applicants receive an offer. That number is not meant to intimidate. It is meant to tell you something about who you will be sitting next to.

We are not looking for the engineer who can pass a LeetCode test. We are looking for people with taste. Who can look at a product and know what is wrong with it before being told. Who communicate clearly, give good updates, and make the people around them feel informed rather than anxious. Who contribute to a team not just through code but through energy, judgment, and presence.

We also pay attention to the things that sit outside a resume. High academic achievement. A chess ranking that took years to earn. A League of Legends account in the top percentile (think top 100 in region). A competitive sport played at a serious level. These are not quirky fun facts to us. They are signals that someone knows what it takes to be exceptional at something, and that kind of person tends to bring that same standard to everything they do.

Technical skill gets you in the door. Everything else is what makes you a Lyra engineer.

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What happens when you join

From the day you start, you are paired with one of Lyra's most senior engineers for up to a month of hands-on training. Not onboarding decks. Not self-paced modules. Real engineering, real feedback, real standards.

You will learn things that universities do not teach. How to communicate with a founder. How to write code that is both scalable and efficient. How to operate inside a fast-moving product team and add value from day one. The details that separate a good engineer from one that can also build trust.

Once you are ready, you move into a work program with Lyra's trusted partners, startups at the forefront of the Australian tech industry. You build real products, work alongside real teams, and develop the experience that is needed to become a full fledge FDE

When the time is right, you step into a full FDE role embedded inside a Silicon Valley startup, operating as a core part of their team.

Every step of that journey, Lyra is with you. Your manager, your senior engineers, the broader team.

The community

This one is hard to oversell.

You are joining a team of some of the most talented, passionate, and driven young engineers and operators in the country. People who push each other to be better, who share what they are learning, and who invest in each other's growth well beyond the time spent in the office.

Surrounding yourself with people like this does something to you without you noticing. The way they communicate starts to raise your bar for how you communicate. The way they approach a problem changes how you approach problems. The care they put into their code, their updates, their craft, starts to feel like the standard rather than the exception.

The clubs

20+ clubs running across Sydney and Melbourne.

Badminton on Wednesday evenings. Bouldering on Tuesdays. Poker at the office every Friday. A cafe club that rotates through the best spots in the city. Pilates twice a week. Ping pong, night outs, board games, basketball, chess, art, book club, running, volleyball, soccer, dance. If it does not exist yet, someone will start it and Lyra will back it.

The network

Lyra's network extends well beyond engineering. At Lyra we are partnered with Anthropic, OpenAI, January Capital, NGV, and virtually every major CS society across universities in Sydney and Melbourne. These networks are here to show you the wider tech scene, and open your eyes on how big the world is outside of just pushing code, and to be alongside and learn from people that are actively changing the world.

The tools and perks

Every Lyra engineer gets AI tools reimbursement. You are expected to use them. The engineers who move fastest here are the ones who learn to use AI as a multiplier on their own ability, not a replacement for thinking.

Beyond the tools: Daily catered lunch, Unlimited coffee, and accredited visa sponsorship across multiple Australian visa subclasses. The office is in Barangaroo, Sydney, right by the harbour. With arguably one of the best views in the city.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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Apply

If this sounds like where you want to be, we would love to meet you.

Apply by filling this form