Case study: Anduril

The brief

Anduril's co-founder and COO and its SVP of Engineering asked us to build the Sydney engineering team from zero. First program: the XL-AUV, later named Ghost Shark, an extra-large autonomous underwater vehicle for the Royal Australian Navy, on a three-year clock. Every hire needed deep multi-disciplinary skill, Australian citizenship and clearance eligibility. Advertising had already failed.

Roles filled

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Software engineering

• Principal Engineer, Vehicle Management System
• Senior Engineer, Autonomy Platform ×2
• Senior Engineer, Embedded Platform ×2
• Engineer, C++ / Linux / Rust ×3
• Engineer, Sensor Fusion
• Senior Engineer, Data Pipeline & Tools
• DevOps Lead

Autonomy & intelligence

• Principal Engineer, Guidance Navigation & Control
• Principal, Machine Learning / AI Model Development
• Simulation & Modelling Engineer

Systems & platform

• Principal Engineer, Vehicle Platform
• Principal Product Designer
• Technical Program Manager
• Application / Product Security Manager

Hardware & engineering

• Naval Architect / Maritime Structural Engineer
• Senior Electronics Design Engineer ×2
• Power Systems Engineer
• Principal Manufacturing Engineer

Operations & support

• Supply Chain Specialist
• UAV Support Engineer

The approach

We mapped every autonomous systems engineer in Australia, plus expats in Silicon Valley, Europe, Japan and Singapore. 1,094 people, each approached individually. Over 90% responded. Scorecard panels, technical tests and architecture reviews followed. ESOP-heavy offers closed at a 96% acceptance rate.

Engineering team in seven months

4 → 28

Senior hires onboarded

24

XL-AUV prototype delivered ahead of schedule

18 months

Australian Government contract to build and supply Ghost Shark

$1.7B

“Threshold for success was high. Work8.co exceeded our expectations on quality of talent onboarded. Demonstrated thorough expertise in the autonomous systems and robotics technical requirements. Moved fast with accuracy in the candidates recommended. Thank you, Tim, and Work8.co. The team you have helped us build will accelerate both the XL-AUV program and Anduril's broader growth as a centre of excellence.”