Grow with us
in Adelaide
Our South Australian team has a strong understanding of the local market, supported by the knowledge and resources of the full Spiire network.
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Interested in joining our team?
Two years on from launching a local presence in Adelaide, the team is thriving.
With a focus on sustainable growth, we’ve brought on experienced South Australian civil engineers, who are passionate about the property development sector and its impact on the places they live and work.
This creates a rich learning environment that also draws in expertise from across the Spiire business. As the office continues to grow and build on its existing project portfolio, there are exciting opportunities for the right people to join the budding team and be part of its evolution.
Real opportunities to develop
Since joining our Adelaide office, civil engineer Lucy Haysman has welcomed the learning opportunities inherent in our way of working.
“I’ve found it to be 100% true that while we get the benefits of a smaller team – which means we’re across everything, you can just tap your neighbour on the shoulder to ask questions – we also have the benefits of a huge number of resources across Australia,” she says.
In her time at Spiire, Lucy has broadened her knowledge through the multidisciplinary nature of our project teams. This collaboration with other in-house specialists, all working together to find solutions, is part of what attracted Lucy to Spiire.
“The large multidisciplinary nature of the business was exciting to me. Civil infrastructure work interfaces with a whole suite of other disciplines,” she says. “I really like how Spiire ranges across Landscape Architecture, Survey, Water as its own discipline… almost like a one-stop shop.”
She says this holistic approach begins from the ground up with our Graduate Program.
“I wish I could have done the Grad Program, but I was already beyond the first few years of my career when I joined Spiire,” she says.
“What it does is exposes people to different disciplines around the business, so they’re able to do a wide variety of things. It just means that generally the mind frame around Spiire, and the culture, is that you don’t just have to be in one team, or doing one thing.’”
Lucy’s interest in engineering stemmed from her aptitude for maths and science, but she was pleasantly surprised to find the reality of working as a civil engineer far more practical.
“It’s exciting, it’s fast-paced and interesting. It’s essential to places that we want to live and work,” she says.
“I like the idea of doing work where I’m from and being part of the opportunity to provide housing, when that’s a real struggle I’ve grown up around.”
Lucy says a shared excitement about their work’s ultimate contribution to local communities is part of what knits the team together. Along with this passion for the work, she says the team has forged trusting relationships, with a culture that respects each other’s commitments outside of work.
Mentorship from industry leaders
In her role, Lucy works closely with veteran civil engineer Mike Lyons, and is learning from his decades of experience on both sides of the coin, as a property development client and consultant.
Civil engineer and project manager Sharyn Chadwick was also drawn to the opportunity to work alongside Mike.
“He’s a legend in the Adelaide development industry,” Sharyn says. “He’s so open with his time and advice. I’m really enjoying getting the chance to learn from his property development acumen.”
Sharyn also believes in the importance of mentoring others, to pass on lessons she has learned and help the next generation establish their own careers. Her long-term contributions to the industry, including as a mentor, were recognised with the UDIA SA Women in Leadership award in 2023.
“I’ve got a lot of knowledge that I want to share,” Sharyn says. “I know how hard it was as a young woman, stepping on a construction site for the first time. I want to build up other engineers to have confidence in their own abilities – not necessarily the technical skills, but applying these in the real world.”
It was while attending the national UDIA awards in 2024 that Sharyn first encountered Spiire, through meeting the Victorian Women in Leadership award winner, Principal Planner Jane Macey.
When opportunity knocked to join Spiire’s emerging Adelaide team, Sharyn remembered the connection. She says the combination of people she was excited to work with, the office’s established project pipeline, and pathways to continue progressing her career all contributed to her decision.
She made the leap from her role at the SA Housing Authority, bringing with her a holistic appreciation of project drivers, accrued through her previous experience as a client, superintendent and public authority representative.
Sharyn says there is a breadth of complementary experience within the Adelaide team. “For example, Michael Schubert is a fantastic contract administrator. He is so methodical, and his attention to detail is incredible. He’s continuously looking for ways we can improve our systems,” she says.
Leveraging a national skill base
The Adelaide office is one of 10 in the Spiire network, supported by the wider team of more than 350 people working on projects throughout VIC, NSW, QLD and the ACT.
Business Manager Harrison Spurling says the exposure to different markets and standards fosters a willingness to try new approaches.
“Being a national business and having experience working across multiple geographies, where things are done really differently in each of those places, has given us a good breadth of knowledge and solutions,” he says.
“It’s part of a mindset where we back ourselves to think differently and look at things holistically before diving in.”
For people working in the Adelaide team, this presents an opportunity to not only learn from local experts, but also tap into specialist knowledge within other regions.
Lucy says having this wider team on call contributes not only to Spiire’s culture, but also the opportunities to further her own professional development.
“While we are a small team here, the gelling that occurs across the national resource base is really fluid,” she says.
