As a Lead Engineer, you will provide hands-on technical leadership, mentor engineers, write code for complex projects, and drive technical direction for key initiatives.
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 Ecosystem
Ready to make a huge impact? The Ecosystem is a central and established part of Xero's success, connecting millions of users to a global network of app partners. The engineering function within the Ecosystem is comprised of four teams, each with about six engineers, working together on a shared mission. We're looking to accelerate our pace and foster a culture of innovation and agility as we build powerful new features and capabilities for our platform.
As a Lead Engineer, you will be embedded within one of these teams, while also being a key member of the technical leadership group that collaborates across the entire Ecosystem. You'll have the unique opportunity to drive initiatives within your team and influence the technical direction across all four.
We own the Xero App Store, empower thousands of developers through our developer portal, and we're breaking new ground with embedded applications, a brand new Xero MCP server, and pioneering AI agent integrations. This is your chance to bring your drive and agility to shape major initiatives, take ownership, and help us move faster.
About the Role: Build, Lead, and Ship
This isn't just a leadership role; you're a builder at heart. As a Lead Engineer, you'll be at the center of our most ambitious projects. We need a leader who can drive technical strategy, write code, and, most importantly, accelerate the entire team. You'll have the freedom to make key architectural decisions and the support to see them through to production. If you thrive on turning big ideas into reality and want to ship products that millions will use, this is the role for you.
This is a hands-on role where you will not only lead and mentor but also contribute to the codebase, tackle complex technical challenges, and champion a culture of speed and engineering excellence.
Please note: This is a senior Individual Contributor (IC) role focused on technical leadership, mentorship, and driving key initiatives. This role does not have people management responsibilities, which distinguishes it from our Team Lead role.
What you'll do:
- Lead from the front: Provide hands-on technical leadership and mentorship, fostering a culture of high-velocity, innovation, and continuous improvement.
- Be a hands-on coder: Actively write code and contribute to the codebase, tackling our most complex technical challenges.
- Drive our technical direction: In collaboration with other lead engineers and our principal engineer, you'll shape the architecture and define the long-term technical vision for our most critical and innovative projects.
- Raise the bar: Champion high standards for code quality through thoughtful PR reviews, and by improving our testing, CI/CD, and security practices.
What you'll bring:
- A strong capability for technical leadership and full-stack engineering, with the ability to guide complex software projects from concept to launch.
- Proficiency in modern web technologies. Our stack is primarily C# on the backend and TypeScript/React on the frontend. More than specific tool experience, we value your strong engineering fundamentals and your drive to master new technologies as they emerge.
- Deep capability in cloud architecture and system design, with the ability to build and operate scalable, resilient microservices-based systems on AWS.
- A bias for action and a result-oriented approach. You excel at balancing technical investment with product priorities to deliver impactful outcomes, fast.
- A passion for multiplying your impact. You're a coach and a mentor who knows that your success is measured by the team's success. You clear roadblocks and empower other engineers to build amazing things.
- An obsession with improvement. You constantly seek out and champion new tools and approaches—like AI-powered coding—to make the whole team more productive.
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
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.
We offer 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!
Top Skills
AWS
C#
React
Typescript
Xero Sydney, New South Wales, AUS Office
Our office is in the heart of the Sydney CBD with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We're just over by Wynyard Park so it's easy to get to.
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