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What tech wreck? Aussie companies are still battling for top talent

Recruiters say software engineers are still in demand and can negotiate high salaries.

Daniel Van Boom
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Block's Jack Dorsey, Google's Sundar Pichai and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg have all led their companies through major layoffs in the last two years. AP/Jose Luis Magana, LM Otero, Jens Meyer.

Read the headlines about massive layoffs at tech companies and it’s easy to picture software engineers lining up the street, looking for work. But that is not the experience of those looking to hire them.

The tech job market remains tight, recruiters say, with deep-pocketed companies still eager to splash out for valuable developers, data scientists and infrastructure engineers.

"There's a perception this is an employer's market, that people are lining up for jobs and we've got the pick of the litter," said Arnold Poon, talent acquisition manager at Sydney startup Propeller Aero. "In general, in the Sydney tech market that's definitely not the case."

Quality tech talent laid off during redundancy rounds are often quickly snapped up, said Alexey Mitko, who early last year left his position as Eucalyptus CFO but remains at the $560 million startup as an adviser.