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Principal Engineer

18 Oct, 2024

  • usaLondon, UK / Manchester, UK / Milton Keynes, UK
  • usaPermanent
  • usaEngineering
  • usaRemote
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Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive. 

At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.

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 ensure a smooth integration of our recent acquisition of Syft Analytics, the leading global cloud-based reporting, insights and analytics platform for small businesses, accountants and bookkeepers to accelerate our mission to provide powerful insights.


Due to your delivery team being based in South Africa, this position will require regular early hours. We anticipate this to be 7am-10am, Tue, Wed, Thu for the first 12 months of this position. You will have full flexibility on how you structure your day but online availability for online meetings during this time is required.

As Principal Engineer you’ll be responsible for building global engineering teams by:

    • 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.
    • Strong understanding of experimentation methodologies, including A/B testing and rapid prototyping.
    • Champion a culture of experimentation, encouraging the team to test new ideas and technologies through prototypes and proof-of-concept projects.

What you’ll do

    • We make it beautiful: Support, develop and deliver by actively measuring, monitoring, and continuously improving the performance and reliability of applications you are responsible for.
    • We make it happen: Delivery Management / Planning and Execution: Expertise in planning, executing, and monitoring projects, often using Agile or other methodologies to ensure timely delivery.
    • We make it human: Proactive in exploring new technologies and methodologies to improve processes and product offerings. Collaborate and coach your team to align to Xero Engineering Standards eg: compliance and security requirements in the Path to Production Standard, front-end development requirements in the Web Application Standard.
    • We make it together: Strong ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders and advocate for the engineering team's needs. This includes Cross-Functional Collaboration in working with product management, design, and other departments to ensure cohesive project alignment.

About you

    • Demonstrate knowledge, skills and expertise leading data platform engineering teams, driving project goals, and maintaining high standards of quality with a deep understanding of the relevant technologies (CDC, AWS, GCP), tools, and processes in their domain (e.g., software development, systems engineering).
    • Share expertise and experience to connect and support the growth of a culture of continuous empathy towards our customers among your team with the ability to make architectural decisions and understand complex systems to guide teams effectively.
    • Attributes and motivations to grow the talent in the team by identifying skill gaps and ensuring there is a clear strategy to close those gaps (which might include upskilling, reassigning or hiring team members).
Recruitment assessment and selection process for Engineering Managers at Xero.
30 minute video call with Talent Specialist to align on suitability to progress/shortlist for formal interview.
90 minute cultural and/technical assessment to assess for value alignment, Engineering Excellence, Collaboration, Leadership, Problem Solving/Solutions /Candidate q’s 
60 minute technical interview 
Offer/Background checks

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, private medical insurance, gym passes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.
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