ABOUT

About Mainstay Digital

Beginnings

Now in our ninth year, Mainstay Digital is an Australian web development agency built to do things differently.

With web development at the centre, web support as a core discipline, our business strives to give clients depth, flexibility, and long-term value.

In doing so, we’ve set out to raise the bar for what a web development partner should be in Australia. What began as website support, development and maintenance has evolved into a sophisticated technical partner for organisations that rely on their websites and web platforms.

Our team is based in Melbourne, Geelong, and Perth, working with clients nationwide.

Not your standard web agency

From the beginning, we wanted to break the mold of the traditional web agency structure and offering. That meant making development our primary focus and building a business around technical expertise, strong client service, clear project management, and confident stakeholder management. It meant working closely with in-house marketers and designers, partnering with complementary agencies, and engaging at a senior level with CIOs, IT teams, and digital leaders. It also meant creating a model that gives clients room to move. No retainers. No lock-in contracts. Just responsive, high-quality technical support when it is needed.

Track Record

Since 2018, we have delivered thousands of projects, from targeted fixes and technical rescue work through to full rebuilds, custom platforms, and complex integrations. We delight in fixing what is broken, improving what is underperforming, and helping platforms become more stable, more useful, and easier to evolve. Often our work begins when a platform has become difficult to manage and someone needs to bring clarity, control, and momentum back to it. That experience continues to shape how we work today, including more structured approaches to governance, practical use of automation and AI, and new ways to help clients manage and evolve their digital platforms over time.

What sets us apart:

+ 100% Local team – Melbourne, Geelong, Perth

+ Hands-on leadership and strategy

+ Long term partnerships

+ Primary development focus and technical depth

Leadership

Matthew McLean

Founder & Director

Mainstay Digital was founded by Matthew McLean (Matt), who has more than 19 years of experience working across the digital industry.

Throughout his career Matt has worked with organisations ranging from small businesses through to enterprise platforms and government projects. His experience spans web development, technical architecture, digital strategy, and long-term platform management.

Matt leads client relationships, platform strategy, and project direction across Mainstay’s work.

Josh Cusens

Head of Delivery & Technical Lead

Josh Cusens leads the technical delivery and development standards across Mainstay Digital.

An experienced open-source developer working across PHP, JavaScript, and Python, Josh has delivered hundreds of successful projects ranging from smaller websites through to complex digital platforms.

His work focuses on building systems that are robust, secure, and maintainable over the long term. And, he architected our automated website health check.

Josh also leads the team’s work around automation, cybersecurity practices, and modern development methodologies.

We believe

An agency should be a true partner. That means being willing to push back, challenge assumptions, and help guide decisions. The relationship should be grounded in trust, clear thinking, and a shared focus on delivering meaningful value over time.

As technology continues to evolve, particularly with the rise of AI, strong governance and thoughtful management have become essential. Technology should support and empower organisations, not create dependency or complexity. It should remain understandable, adaptable, and built in a way that avoids unnecessary technical debt.

Values

Our values are a cornerstone of Mainstay and underpin our work, attitude and approach in all that we do.

1. Integrity

We believe in honest communication and building long-term trust with the organisations we support.

2. Quality

Technical decisions, deliverables, communications should prioritise reliability, maintainability, and long-term performance. Quality is woven in to the fabric of who we are.

3. Reliability

Being truly reliable means to be consistently there, to do what you say you will do, and to be trusted. This is something we strive for day in, day out.

4. Transparency

Transparency is honesty. In practical terms this means we strive to educate, inform and communicate in ways which seek to clarify and “shine a light”. This goes for our methodologies, practices, processes, communications, attitudes, scoping and costings.

5. Respect

Respect is about others. By respecting anothers’ beliefs, attitudes and person, we empower ourselves and each other. If we’re coming from a place of mutual respect, then we can build trust and honesty.

Experience

CASE STUDY

Get in touch

If you need a technical partner to build, support, or improve your organisation’s website or web platform, we would be happy to discuss your requirements. We can review your current platform, provide technical advice, or help scope upcoming work.

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