Looking for Philippines-based candidates
Job Role: Technical Research & Development Specialist (R&D)
Compensation range: $1,800 AUD - $2,500 AUD / Monthly
Engagement type: Independent Contractor Agreement
Work Schedule: This role is expected to align with the AU (Melbourne) business hours (approx. 8 AM - 5 PM) for collaboration, but as a contractor, you’ll have flexibility in how you manage your time.
Who We Are: At Hunt St, we help Australian companies hire top remote talent in the Philippines. For this role, you will be engaged directly by the client as an independent contractor. We are not an outsourcing agency. All of our roles are 100% remote so you'll be able to work from home.
Who The Client Is: An Australian professional services firm specialising in R&D Tax Incentive support. They help businesses organise financial and project documentation needed to prepare R&D tax claims, with technical eligibility handled by an Australian-based R&D tax manager.
Role Overview: As a Technical Research & Development Specialist (R&D), your primary value is uncovering genuine technical uncertainty, identifying failed approaches and experimental logic, challenging unsupported assumptions, and delivering rigorous, audit-ready first-pass assessments.
This role offers a clear growth trajectory: as our offshore technical capability expands, the right person will progress from Technical Research & Development Specialist (R&D) to Senior R&D Technical Specialist, ultimately helping lead and mentor a team of 2–4 technical specialists. You will also have the opportunity to help build AI-enabled internal and public-facing tools that assess R&D activity quality and streamline claim preparation.
Key Responsibilities:
Technical Assessment & Uncertainty Discovery
- Find Core R&D & Technical Uncertainty: Interrogate client transcripts and source materials to extract genuine technological uncertainties, hypotheses, experiments, failed approaches, observations, and conclusions—distinguishing core experimental R&D from work that was simply hard, slow, new, or expensive.
- Check Material Claims Against Source: Rigorously verify every assertion against original client data. If a claim is not explicitly backed by source material, treat it as unsupported rather than trying to make it sound convincing.
- Deliver High-Quality First-Pass Assessments: Prepare accurate, comprehensive initial technical work as part of the learning and production process, allowing the R&D Tax Manager to review rather than write from scratch.
Client Discovery & Investigation
- Observe & Lead Technical Interviews: Attend technical client interviews alongside our R&D Tax Manager—initially observing how strong R&D activities are identified, progressing toward leading discussions with engineers, CTOs, and technical leads.
- Develop Material Follow-Up Questions: Formulate the five highest-value follow-up questions for every case that materially improve the technical position and fill critical evidence gaps.
Advanced AI Workflow & System Improvement
- Interrogate Source Material via AI: Use AI to analyze and extract insights from Fathom transcripts and technical documentation rather than manually summarizing line by line.
- Adversarial AI Self-Testing: Establish a daily habit of using AI to challenge your own work before submitting it—prompting AI to act as a skeptical government tax auditor to attack your conclusions, expose weaknesses, and test alternative interpretations.
- Continuous Workflow Optimization: Continuously suggest better prompts, technical interview questions, internal QA workflows, and quality-control processes as you learn.
Tools & System
- Claude
- ChatGPT
- Microsoft Office
- Google Workspace
- Monday.com (or similar project management software)
Required Skills and Qualifications:
- 3–5+ years of experience as a scientist, engineer, or technical professional with practical industry experience in engineering, software development, product development, testing, validation, or failure investigation.
- Experimental Thinking: Deep understanding of hypotheses, technical uncertainty, testing, iteration, failure modes, and systematic learning.
- Technical Judgment: Ability to distinguish genuine experimentation from work that was simply hard, slow, new, or expensive.
- Critical Technical Skepticism: A strict habit of checking claims against source evidence and refusing to dress up unsupported statements.
- Ownership: Ability to progress work independently without repeated chasing while actively looking for system improvements.
- Clear Communication: Excellent spoken and written English, with the ability to unpack complex technical concepts and explain reasoning clearly.
Highly Desirable
- Sufficient software-development literacy to understand technical limitations, failed architectural approaches, testing frameworks, and code logic.
- Daily, practical experience using Claude, ChatGPT, or similar tools for complex technical analysis and structured data extraction (rather than just drafting emails).
- Prior experience working with Australian, UK, or US businesses.
Bonus Points
- Hands-on experience with Claude Code, Cursor, automation tools, or lightweight application development.
- Experience building/refining advanced prompt frameworks, AI workflows, or automated review processes.
- Background or familiarity with the Australian R&D Tax Incentive framework (specifically the legal definitions of Core and Supporting R&D activities).
What Success Looks Like
- Month 1–3: Rapidly master the discovery process by observing client interviews, using AI to extract evidence from transcripts, and producing accurate initial work that identifies unsupported claims.
- Month 6: Dependably formulate the top five high-value follow-up questions for any project, spot subtle technical uncertainties, and deliver strong first-pass assessments with minimal rework required by the R&D Tax Manager.
- Month 12: Independently handle transcripts and technical documentation to prepare complete, audit-ready technical assessments. The R&D Tax Manager's role shifts primarily to high-level review, while you actively improve internal systems—upgrading prompt workflows, interview frameworks, and AI-assisted quality control.
Work Arrangement & Expectations:
This is a remote role that will be set up as an independent contractor engagement.
To ensure alignment and transparency, successful candidates will be expected to:
- Disclose any existing ongoing roles, clients, or commitments that may affect availability.
- The successful candidate may also be asked to update their LinkedIn profile or otherwise confirm the engagement publicly once the role is established.
