Lead Engineer

At Xero, we're here to help supercharge small businesses by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps.

About the Team: The Catalyst Engineering portfolio is our platform engineering and developer enablement function. We power Xero's global engineering teams and Partner Ecosystem, providing platforms and toolchains that enable rapid, secure, and robust product development. The Catalyst team leads technology strategy and adoption at Xero.

This Lead Engineer role sits within the API Golden Pathways group, charged with creating a seamless API ecosystem. You will guide a pod dedicated to the Xero Gateway, the primary ingress point for all inbound API traffic, driving API-first initiatives including ingress, versioning, security, documentation and discovery to accelerate speed to market.

As a Lead Engineer, you will be the technical authority and mentor for the Xero Gateway pod. You will lead the design, build and maintenance of the critical infrastructure underpinning our public-facing APIs. This is a hands-on leadership role blending deep technical expertise with mentoring and a strategic vision for platform engineering. You will make significant technical decisions and help shape how Xero connects with the world.

• Provide technical leadership and strategic direction for the design, development, and operation of the Xero Gateway and API ingress solutions.
• Mentor, coach, and develop a high-performing team of engineers, promoting innovation, accountability, and engineering excellence.
• Own the architectural vision and technical roadmap for your pod's domain, ensuring scalable, secure, resilient solutions aligned with Xero's broader strategy.
• Champion modern engineering practices, including infrastructure as code, automation, and data-driven decision-making.
• Lead complex engineering projects from concept to delivery and ongoing operational support.
• Collaborate with product managers, architects, and other engineering leads to define priorities and drive cross-team initiatives for the API platform strategy.
• Act as a subject matter expert on cloud networking, API gateways, and infrastructure security, guiding best practices across the engineering community.

• Proven experience in a technical leadership role with a track record of mentoring engineers and delivering complex distributed systems.
• Deep expertise in cloud networking and infrastructure, particularly with AWS, and strong Kubernetes experience.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code using tools like Terraform.
• Strong software development fundamentals with proficiency in languages such as C# or Typescript.
• Strategic mindset with the ability to solve complex problems, assess trade-offs, and make data-informed decisions.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience with API gateways (e.g., Gloo Gateway or similar) and API lifecycle management is highly desirable.

Generous paid leave (plus statutory holidays), dedicated leave for wellbeing, and an Employee Assistance Program for mental health care. Health insurance, life insurance, and income protection are provided.

We offer wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, flexible working, career development and other benefits that reflect our human values.

You'll do the best work of your life at Xero

• Seniority level: Not Applicable
• Employment type: Full-time
• Job function: Engineering and Information Technology
• Industries: Software Development