Senior Development Manager

Melbourne's built-form market is turning, and the seats worth moving for aren't the ones on the job boards. The best SDM mandates right now are those with developers with committed pipeline and balance sheet, rather than pre-sale dependence and they’re hiring now, not waiting.

With the ground starting to shift - the Townhouse and Low-Rise Code, and now the Mid-Rise Code, rewriting how medium-density and apartment product gets approved, the developers moving fastest are the ones with senior people who know how to use that. Those are the roles I'm working.

I run a specialist property development desk, and I'm currently engaged on several built-form SDM and DM briefs across Melbourne, spanning medium density residential in the greenfield growth corridors through to mixed-use and infill in established activity centres. Different clients, different scales, one thing in common, funded developers with real pipeline, not operators chasing the next pre-sale to get a project out of the ground.

Who I want to talk to

Senior development managers who've delivered built-form product end-to-end from medium-density residential, apartments, mixed-use and own the commercial outcome, not just the program. Real fluency in the Victorian built-form planning system is the line in the sand. The new Townhouse, Low-Rise and Mid-Rise Codes, Better Apartments, activity centre frameworks, and the wave of planning reform reshaping how medium-density and apartment product gets approved. If you've taken a contested built-form site through approval and out the other side, we should talk.

Why reach out, even if you're not actively looking

Because the best moves usually aren't made by people who were actively applying and many of the roles I work on aren’t advertised. A confidential conversation costs you nothing, an honest read on where the market sits, what these mandates are paying, and whether any of them are worth your time.

Contact Renee Bengston at *********@goughrecruitment.com.au or 0432 496 *** for a confidential discussion.