Principal Engineer

Our Purpose

At Xero, we're here to help you supercharge your business. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we're not only making life better for small business, we'll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.

About the team

This Principal Engineer will join the Accounting Domain in Xero, which lies at the heart of what Xero does. You'll work in collaboration with multiple engineering teams - some work within the domain and others work on delivering products that depend on it. The exposure this Principal Engineer will get to all aspects of what Xero does, through being part of this core domain, will be both challenging and interesting.

How you'll make an impact

Own and deliver org/company-wide multi-year, multi-team goals with technical expertise of In-depth understanding of specific technologies and engineering principles relevant(e.g., software, hardware, systems).

Design and evaluate system architectures, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance utilising your high-level programming skills in relevant languages, with a focus on best practices and design patterns.

This specific position will unlock and enable Platform Enablement teams to scale for 10x growth while uplifting tech stack through transition states that will drive business value.

• Proven experience in tech leading large, complex projects to delivery, ensuring technical excellence and alignment with strategic goals.
• Extensive technical leadership experience on cloud-native platforms, with a strong focus on scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Strong communicator—able to develop compelling, clear, and focused messages and effectively present them at the executive level.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor and coach engineers (across all levels) on technical challenges and career development.
• Experience contributing to technical vision and advocating for engineering best practices across a portfolio.
• Skilled in developing and implementing techniques to quantify the cost of technical debt and determine when to address it.

• Influencing the technical strategy of a group, often partnering closely with Heads of Engineering and/or senior product and engineering leadership to ensure the health of product development as a whole and influences the overall direction of product development.
• Collaboration with product managers, designers, and other stakeholders to align technical solutions with business needs. Principal Engineer helps break down silos within and across functions and influences others to reach the best outcome for Xero. They build deep cross-functional relationships, facilitate the right conversations, and settle disagreements by managing different viewpoints.
• Principal Engineer lifts team performance through goal clarity, feedback, removal of barriers, coaching and establishing a psychologically safe inclusive team culture. They model a standard of excellence that supports a culture of high performance on their team. They drive engineering-wide processes and define the bar for quality and best practices. They devote time to spreading knowledge widely via talks, blog posts or written documentation.
• Proven experience in software engineering with a focus on system architecture and design.
• Champion a culture of experimentation, encouraging the team to test new ideas and technologies through prototypes and proof-of-concept projects.

Why Xero?

Offering very generous paid leave to use however you'd like (plus statutory holidays), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, health insurance, life insurance, and income protection, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you'll do the best work of your life at Xero.

Our collaborative and inclusive culture is one we're immensely proud of. We know that a diverse workforce is a strength that enables businesses, including ours, to better understand and serve customers, attract top talent and innovate successfully. We are a member of Pride in Diversity, in recognition of our inclusive workplace. Our goal is to make sure you feel welcome and supported to do the best work of your life.

At Xero we embrace diversity and inclusion and value a #challenge mindset. Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience . If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.