About Aera

Aera is building a coaching platform that's the world's first end-to-end co-pilot for first-home buyers. We combine behavioural psychology, personalised learning and performance coaching to guide people to achieve an extraordinary personal goal: owning their first home.

We've already helped heaps of Kiwis buy their first homes. Users call our gamified app a "magic toolbox" and "the best thing since sliced bread" - with 100% NPS from successful buyers.

But we believe we're only 1% of the way there.

Our mission is to build the world's best behavioural performance coaching platform, helping hundreds of thousands of people build the right mindset, habits and actions to get into their first home.

"Most Kiwis believe they can’t buy a home because money is the problem. It isn't. Belief is the problem. Knowledge and strategy are the problem. Habits are the problem. We're solving that by coaching the next generation into their biggest life goal, faster."

The Role

We're looking for a performance Coaching and Behavioural Design specialist who understands that knowledge alone doesn't change people - belief, behaviour change, and strategy do.

This is one of one job. Nothing like this exists in the world and it's not a standard content job or a standard L&D or coaching role.

You're the architect of how people learn, grow, and perform both inside and outside Aera - for our customers and our own team. You'll sit at the intersection of learning science, behavioural psychology, peak performance, content creation and AI coaching design - shaping experiences that actually move people forward.

At the centre of it all is Senna - our AI coach. You'll own guiding Senna's coaching intelligence: how it thinks, nudges, challenges, and adapts to each person's journey.

What You'll Do

You'll work across four areas:

• Customer coaching and learning journey - a structured curriculum alongside Senna's adaptive paths. Sequenced, personalised, and designed to shift behaviour and inspire peak performance. Think 'Duolingo' for your first home with a coach in your corner.
• Senna's coaching intelligence - our coaching philosophy, voice, knowledge base, and how it nudges, challenges, and adapts. You own the brief for how Senna thinks and coaches every Aera member to achieve more, not just what it says.
• Behavioural layer across the whole product - every message, screen, and notification is a behaviour change intervention. You're the conscience that makes each one count.
• Internal performance OS - the same system we build for customers, we will use for our own team. You'll design onboarding, brand training, and a simulation-based platform - including conversation practice, objection handling, and scenario-based assessment to inspire peak performance.

Who You Are

You won't have done exactly this before - no one in the world has. But you'll have most of these:

• A deep passion for behaviour change and high performance frameworks - habit formation, motivational psychology, persuasive design - science backed, evidence-based frameworks, applied practically in the real world
• You've always been more interested in why people don't do things than why they do
• You know the difference between someone who learned something and someone who actually changed with a desire to perform better
• You don't just create content - you think about the exact moment someone will experience it, what state they'll be in, and what they need to feel next
• You think in sequences, not topics - you can't help but ask "and then what happens to them?"

Must-Have Experience

• Experience building training and performance coaching that develops real improvement
• You can structure a personalised learning journey - not a content dump, but personalised progressions that sequences knowledge, builds confidence, and knows when to introduce difficulty, when to reward
• Ability to write and govern coaching language - a single line of copy can be the difference between someone taking action or closing the app
• Experience building simulation-based training - scenario assessments and roleplay frameworks where people practise handling real situations, and our customers imagine real scenarios where they need to make choices
• A natural collaborator with product and design - shaping experiences from first principles, not reviewing content after the fact
• Bonus: Experience designing or briefing AI and conversational experiences - knowing when to push, when to hold back, and how to stay consistent across thousands of conversations

Backgrounds That Could Lead You Here

Your job title matters less than your mental toolkit. The right person may have come from:

• Instructional or learning design, especially where the goal was behaviour change, not compliance
• Individual, team, sports or business performance; psychology, coaching, or counselling - with a genuine interest in applying these principles inside digital products
• L&D for frontline, sales, or service teams — especially if you've built simulations or competency-based training to inspire elite performance
• Health, wellbeing, or community organisations where you've made complex topics accessible and motivating for people who didn't think it applied to them
• Digital product or UX roles where content and experience were inseparable

If you've ever looked at a financial literacy, health or wellbeing programme and known exactly why it wasn't working - and had a clear idea of how to fix it, that instinct is what we're hiring for.

What Success Looks Like

• Every Aera user feels genuinely, personally inspired, motivated and guided - they know what to do next, why and believe they can do it to achieve a massive personal milestone
• Senna feels like a real personalised performance coach, backed by evidence-based science and frameworks - learning all your hot buttons and motivates you to strive towards that best next step
• The learning journey shifts behaviour and belief, not just knowledge
• The broader Aera team experiences career defining training and induction -the best-trained, most psychologically confident team in the industry knowing exactly what buttons to push to help move our members from dreamers to home owners
• The product evolves from useful to truly category-defining on a global benchmark, inspiring people around the world to be their best self towards achieving a life changing goal
• You become a key voice in how Aera grows - across product, people, and platform

How We Work

• Small, high-trust team
• Fast decisions, fast iteration
• We seek real feedback from real users
• As a start-up, everyone contributes beyond their role and no task is too small

❤️ Why Aera

You'll design a product that helps people achieve something life-changing.

You'll work at the intersection of AI, psychology, and real-world outcomes.

And you'll be part of a team building what we believe will become the default way people get into their first home around the world.

Apply at https://nz.seek.com/job/91874557?ref=cm-ui