Petr Hudecek

Thinking about moving from perm to contract in the NZ dev market? Here’s how it actually works 👇 How people really land their first contract? -> Recruiters they already know -> Ex-employers calling them back Cold applying almost never works. Who contracting actually works for? 👌 -> 5–10 years’ experience -> Strong backend/ full stack engineers -> Auckland enterprise = .NET land Think: -> C# / ASP.NET / .NET Core -> Microservices -> Azure -> Middleware & integrations (RabbitMQ, IBM MQ service bus, etc.) -> Not heaps, but a decent amount of mobile development. Large enterprise and banking environments in Auckland are consistently contractor-heavy in this stack. Timing (this is the most important bit) ⏲️ -> Best time: straight after redundancy, immediately available -> Worst time: quitting a safe perm role in a tight market hoping something turns up. Money 💴 💵 💶 -> Typical rates clearing: $80 –$125/hr -> These rates usually require sole contractor setup -> PAYE costs more for the employer → noticeably lower take-home -> Expect 4–10 interviews a year as normal churn If the market slows, you can be without work for 6–12 months. (I have someone on my books who has contracted for 12 years within NZ enterprises, and unemployed since 2024) P.S. - Contracting pays more because someone has to carry the risk. That someone is you ❤️ If you are considering a move like that, come chat.

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🚀 Tech Stack Trends in Australia 2025 Here’s what I've been seeing the most so far this year Frontend - React continues to dominate. Next.js is quickly becoming the default for full-stack apps. Backend - Node.js, Go, and Python are all heavily used, however, I'm finding a lot of businesses wanting more Python developers right now. Databases - PostgreSQL is the go-to to but MongoDB and DynamoDB are also common. Cloud & DevOps - AWS is the most widely used. Docker, Kubernetes, and serverless frameworks are also now standard. What does your current stack look like compared to this? Am I on the money?

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🌏✈️ NZ aerospace tech continues to go global. Big news from Christchurch-based Dawn Aerospace, as they have partnered with the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority to bring a MK-II Aurora spaceplane to Oklahoma, scheduled for delivery in 2027. Partnerships like this highlight how Kiwi innovation is not only pushing boundaries here at home — but also unlocking new opportunities in global space access, tech development, and next-gen flight. Aotearoa to Oklahoma — the NZ aerospace story keeps expanding. Read the full story here> https://lnkd.in/dWcrje7T #NZinSpace #AerospaceNZ #GlobalInnovation #Spaceplane #DawnAerospace #Aurora #NextGenFlight New Zealand Space Agency Hon Judith Collins KC MP ChristchurchNZ

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We're proud to announce a new partnership with Qantas to explore opportunities to collaborate on projects related to talent development, workforce advancement, and innovation within the aviation sector ✈️ This partnership is designed as a flexible framework and we're committed to exploring the following priority areas together: 🛩️ Aviation Expertise: Industry-aligned education and research supporting a safe, efficient, and innovative aviation sector. 🛜 Safe and Responsible AI: Developing AI agents and systems for logistics and planning. ⚙️ Software Engineering: Developing skills to design, build, and deliver high-quality software solutions. 💼 Digital Product Management: Building capability to guide products from concept to delivery, integrating strategic thinking, customer insight, and agile practices. 💡 Product Design: Fostering creativity and technical expertise in user-centred product and service design. “Qantas and Adelaide University share a mutual interest in driving innovation and technological advancements, especially in the field of AI, supporting workforce development and contributing to the long-term future of Australia’s aviation sector,” says Prof Jessica Gallagher, Deputy VC International & External Engagement. The partnership coincides with Qantas' plans to establish a dedicated Product Innovation Centre in Adelaide – the first of its kind outside of Sydney – and reflects the start of an ambitious, long-term collaboration, anchored by Qantas’ commitment to establish a presence in South Australia. Read more 👉 https://lnkd.in/gSSWrmYg

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Document Collection for Australian mortgage brokers shouldn't be this bloody hard. You send an email with a list of what's needed. Clients upload to the wrong place. You can't see what's missing without opening each file. Documents come back with names like "IMG_4738.jpg" Clients email questions. You answer. They upload to the old email thread. It's chaos. Here's what should happen: Send one link. Client uploads everything in one place. They can message you with questions right there. You see exactly what's missing at a glance. No login required for them. That's Kaddim. Built for Australian mortgage brokers who are tired of chasing documents through email threads and renaming files manually. Request. Remind. Review. Rename. Relax. --------------- I'm Guy. I've built a document collection & file renaming tool for Australian mortgage brokers with Farzan M.. It speeds up your document collection and frees up your VA for more important work. #mortgagebroker #homeloans #brokertools

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BREAKING NEWS | Webjet Group buys Locomote for $17 million upfront cash payment Webjet Group has purchased business travel management platform Locomote in a bid to boost its corporate bookings growth strategy. The Melbourne-based acquiree offers a fully developed end-to-end corporate booking platform, and will help Webjet fulfil previously stated ambitions to address demand for more seamless digital solutions for its customers.

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Launching Our New Passport Capture Service at Air New Zealand We’ve just taken a bold step toward the future of travel. Our team has developed a new passport capture service — a foundational move on our journey toward decentralized digital identity. This milestone makes it possible for customers to securely store and reuse their identity to speed up processes that currently require a passport. ✅ No bags? Skip the kiosk. Check in online and walk straight to the gate. ✅ Smoother repeat travel. Your details autofill, so you don’t have to re-enter them every time. ✅ One step closer to passport-free travel. Strong identity verification made seamless. This isn’t just about faster check-ins — it’s about reimagining the way people move through airports and how digital identity can unlock new levels of convenience and security. Huge credit to the brilliant team at Air New Zealand driving this forward. We're just getting started. Pam Speed , 🌱James Little, Samuel Melese, Sebastian Treydte, Luke Adams and Chelsea Stringer #DigitalIdentity #DecentralizedID #AirNewZealand #TravelInnovation #DigitalPassport #FrictionlessTravel #ContactlessTravel

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The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAANZ) recently awarded Merlin an Experimental Certificate of Airworthiness, which grants us approval to conduct certification flight testing of the Merlin Pilot in New Zealand. This is a pivotal step in our final push towards achieving the world’s first certification of takeoff to touchdown autonomy. Read our blog post that shows how we continue to prove our ability to safely and reliably operate its autonomy platform in a controlled environment. https://lnkd.in/eX9fFV2M

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Cyber-attacks against Kiwi organisations are having a profound impact. 59% of businesses surveyed experienced a cyber incident in the past 12 months. Get our report for exclusive insights into the state of cyber security in New Zealand—and what your business can do to stay ahead. Link in Comments

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Shopify and Australian National University are integrating the Memory Management Toolkit (MMTk) with Ruby. This isn't incremental improvement - it's fundamental research that could transform how Rails applications perform at scale. MMTk provides a modular framework for building sophisticated garbage collection algorithms. Once integrated, Ruby gains access to collectors like Generational Immix and Sticky Immix that dramatically outperform the current Mark and Sweep approach. These algorithms have been proven in other languages but never available to Ruby developers. The technical challenges were substantial. Ruby wasn't designed for copying garbage collectors that move objects in memory. Shopify's team introduced "Potentially Pinning Parents" to identify objects that cannot move, allowing the vast majority of objects to benefit from advanced collection whilst maintaining compatibility. Finalization posed another problem. Traditional malloc-based memory management created bottlenecks during parallel garbage collection. The solution involved allocating buffers for common types (Array, String, MatchData) as Ruby objects themselves, enabling automatic memory management and eliminating finalization overhead for these critical types. Two implementations exist. The MMTk team maintains an advanced fork experimenting with cutting-edge techniques. The upstream Ruby implementation uses the modular GC framework and learns from the research fork whilst maintaining ecosystem compatibility. Knowledge flows in both directions. For Rails developers, this work delivers performance improvements without code changes. Applications handling large datasets or high request volumes benefit from reduced memory overhead and improved allocation patterns. Understanding these garbage collection fundamentals increasingly distinguishes senior developers who can diagnose performance issues from those who cannot. This collaboration demonstrates how investing in fundamental research benefits entire programming ecosystems. The improvements being developed today will eventually reach production Ruby installations worldwide, making every Rails application faster. What memory management challenges have you encountered in production Rails applications? #RubyInternals #ShopifyEngineering #Performance #TechRecruitment

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Defence sector update 🇦🇺✨ Here’s a snapshot of what’s happening in Australia’s defence industry right now: • The Government is moving ahead with a big restructure of the Defence Department, including a new Defence Delivery Agency aimed at improving project delivery and accountability. • Local defence businesses are getting a boost to grow sovereign manufacturing, covering submarines, aerospace, and guided weapons — great for Australia’s industrial base. • Defence spending is rising globally, as allied nations invest in capability and innovation — keeping the supply chain and tech sectors busy! • Events like the Singapore Airshow 2026 are showcasing the latest in regional defence tech and collaboration. • And there’s a strong focus on next-gen talent and innovation across engineering, software, and project delivery — exciting times for people building their careers in this space. The industry is moving fast, and it’s amazing to see how capabilities, technology, and people are all coming together. 🚀 #Defence #Nuclear #DefenceRecruitment #AUKUS #Collinclass #Ships

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