The best Australian start-ups and tech companies to work at have been revealed, with neobanks and fintechs leading the way, according to a LinkedIn report.

The LinkedIn Top Start-ups 2019 ranks where Australians most want to work.

This second annual instalment shows which early-stage tech companies are “commanding professionals’ attention” today.

There have been some major changes from last year’s edition, with start-up hero Canva knocked from the top position, and the emergence of several neobanks and fintech firms.

To compile the list, LinkedIn’s editors and data scientists analyse billions of actions made by the professional social network’s 645 million users, centred on four key factors: employee growth, jobseeker interest, member engagement with the company and its employees, and how well these start-ups attract talent from the top LinkedIn companies.

Melbourne-based neobank Judo Banking took out the top spot.

The start-up, which received its banking licence in April, has 140 employees, with 40 per cent of its team born overseas.

In contrast to other fintech companies, Judo Banking isn’t seeking to hire refugees from the big banks, but rather people “who want to build a new banking experience from the ground up”.

Staff at Judo Banking are provided with an equity incentive at the start-up, along with five weeks annual leave and education opportunities.

“Talent attracts talent, when you run a company with a serious board and serious investors, then serious bankers want to come and work for you and magic happens,” Judo Banking co-founder Chris Bayliss told The Daily Telegraph.

“The other thing a start-up can do that the big banks cannot is try to embed the mindset of an entrepreneur.”

The majority of hirings at Judo Banking are for business development, finance and operations.

Canva, a Sydney start-up renowned for being a popular place to work, placed second on the LinkedIn list. The company now has 400 employees and recently celebrated the 1 billionth design created on its platform.

The start-up prides itself on the flexibility it offers staff, with equity also given to employees, in-house chefs, personal coaching and a pet-friendly office.

There’ll be more opportunities to receive these perks too, with Canva looking to rapidly expand around the world this year and bring on a further 600 team members.

Flexibility and bespoke workplace conditions helped many of the top companies stand out from the pack.

IT firm Mantel Group bases an employee’s work conditions on their personal life and career goals, and offers clear expectations, feedback and support instead of traditional performance management.

The company, which placed at number four on the list, is also currently “aggressively hiring”, and ensures that at least one woman is on every hiring panel to promote gender diversity.

Availability to the head honchos also helps start-ups to differentiate themselves from the larger companies that they are competing with for talent.

All final candidates for a role at Assembly Payments, which placed at number nine on the list, get to meet at least one of the company’s founders to “hear the story of how the business began”.

Neobank Xinja makes sure that every prospective candidate has a 30-minute sit-down coffee with company CEO Eric Wilson before they are hired. The start-up also offers unlimited annual leave, free meals at any time and the offer to invest in the bank.

“You can’t expect someone to work their guts out in order to make you rich,” Wilson said.

“We treat our staff like grown-ups. People can take unlimited leave where all we ask is that it doesn’t impact customers or their team. Everyone laughed when I started but getting people to take time off is hard when they are so committed.

“I love seeing them come back invigorated and regenerated.”

Other companies on the list include Shippit, Sonder and Moula Financial Services.

The list is compiled by looking at the company’s percentage headcount increase over the past year, the number of views from non-employees on the company’s LinkedIn page and the pages of employees, the number of times people are viewing and applying for jobs at the company, and how many employees the start-up has recruited away from LinkedIn top companies as a percentage of its overall workforce.