SEO sits right at the intersection of craft, curiosity, and commercial reality. When it's done well, it changes how businesses grow. When it's done lazily, it's noise.
That's becoming even more true as search shifts. AI is changing how content is created, how results are surfaced, and how people discover information. It's powerful, uneven, and easy to misuse.
We're looking for someone who genuinely cares about getting it right. Someone who understands how search engines work, but doesn't treat them like a black box, a religion, or a prompt factory. Someone who likes thinking, testing, questioning, and explaining why things work, not just reporting that they did.
This role exists because SEO is a core part of how we help clients make better decisions, not just get more traffic. August is deliberately building toward work that influences how organisations think and act, not just how they're seen. The work is getting more complex, and the expectations are higher than they used to be.
The role, plainly
You'll be responsible for leading SEO work across a range of clients. That means strategy, execution, communication, and follow-through. You'll have real autonomy to shape how we do SEO at August, and real responsibility to make sure it stands up to scrutiny over time.
This isn't a role for someone early in their career, or for a mid-level SEO looking to step up. You'll be the person others look to for clarity, judgement, and direction. Not through hierarchy, but through how you work and the calls you make.
You'll work closely with copywriters, analysts, designers, and developers. SEO here doesn't live in a silo. It's part of the broader system, including how AI tools are used responsibly across content, research, and analysis.
What you'll actually be doing
* Owning SEO strategy and outcomes across complex client engagements
* Making clear calls on priority and trade-offs across SEO, content, UX, engineering, and data
* Leading SEO through major site rebuilds, migrations, and structural change
* Working closely with writers and developers to improve quality and long-term performance
* Navigating algorithm and AI-driven shifts in search with judgement rather than urgency
* Communicating recommendations clearly to clients, and sticking with them as conditions change
This work includes detail, repetition, clean-up, and follow-through. Senior ownership means taking responsibility for all of it.
You will need
* A strong track record of owning SEO outcomes end to end
* Deep technical SEO understanding, paired with clear, plainspoken communication
* Experience working alongside content, design, development, and analytics teams
* Comfort operating where the right answer isn't obvious at first
* Enough commercial awareness to know when SEO effort is worth it, and when it isn't
* The ability to manage your own work and momentum without close oversight
If you're still looking for someone to show you how to do senior SEO, this won't be the right role.
Non-negotiables
* You have the right to work in Australia
* You can work onsite from our Richmond office
* This is a full-time role
You'll probably enjoy this role if
* You like working across disciplines, not defending a single lane
* You care about how decisions land in the real world, not just on paper
* You're comfortable sitting in ambiguity long enough to find the right call
* You value steady progress over dramatic gestures
Extra credit, not essentials
* Experience collaborating closely with product, UX, or engineering teams
* Familiarity with how AI tools are used, misused, and cleaned up in content workflows
* Strong written communication, especially when explaining complex ideas simply
* A working understanding of paid media, analytics, or conversion optimisation
* An understanding of financial and risk principles, and how they shape commercial decisions
Working at August
Working at August is deliberate. It's not chaotic, and it's not rigid. It's designed to give experienced people room to do their best work without unnecessary friction.
We're building something here. Not in a rush, and not for scale at any cost, but with intent. We want our work to influence how organisations make decisions, not just how they market themselves. That ambition shows up in the kinds of problems we take on and the standard we expect of the work.
You'll have a high degree of autonomy in how you work, paired with clear expectations about judgement, quality, and follow-through. We care deeply about how decisions are made, not just what gets delivered. That balance matters, and it's something we actively protect.
The work is thoughtful and often complex. It rewards people who like to think things through, ask better questions, and take responsibility for the outcomes of their decisions. A sense of play still matters, but it's grounded in craft and curiosity, not chaos.
If you want to understand how we work, ask. We pay attention to the questions people bring and the way they approach problems. That tells us far more than rehearsed answers.
Our values aren't posters on a wall. They guide how we work with clients, how we treat each other, and how we make calls when things aren't straightforward. They've helped us deliver meaningful, award-winning work with organisations we respect, and they've carried us through some genuinely difficult moments.
As part of the team, you'll keep sharpening your technical craft, but you'll also deepen other muscles. Clear communication. Commercial judgement. Perspective. And, occasionally, entirely non-essential knowledge, like a very good dumpling recommendation, the narrative logic of Seinfeld, or the engineering magic behind a SpaceX test flight.
If this feels worth exploring
If you'd like to express interest, send us:
* Your CV
* A short note about why this role caught your attention
* The name of one August client you've looked into
If you have a personal site or portfolio, include it if you'd like.
If you've got questions, ask them. Curiosity matters here.