Lead Platform Engineer - Salesforce

Xero; City of Boroondara; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Xero is seeking a Platform Lead Engineer in Melbourne to define and execute the technical vision for the Salesforce platform. You will partner with the Engineering Manager to translate strategy into a practical plan, while coaching engineers across multiple pods.

You will own CI/CD, security, data governance, observability, and AI operations direction, shaping architecture and standards across the platform.

Qualifications

• Experience delivering and operating Salesforce solutions at enterprise scale.
• Strong platform-engineering mindset, enabling other teams.
• Ability to plan and delegate execution to engineers.

Responsibilities

• Refine the technical vision for the Salesforce platform and break it into executable steps.
• Own cross-cutting security posture, access control, vulnerabilities, and tooling decisions.
• Lead CI/CD deployment pipelines and release engineering across major release cycles.
• Own data governance, GDPR-related commitments, retention and archival standards.
• Maintain and grow platform observability and manage production risk across pods.

Skills

Salesforce platform

Platform engineering

Technical leadership

CI/CD pipelines

Security posture ownership

Distributed systems

AI operations familiarity

Coaching/mentoring

GitHub

SFDX

Observability tooling

Tools

GitHub

SFDX

Observability tooling

Job description

The role and its impact

As a Platform Lead Engineer at Xero, you will partner with the Engineering Manager to set the technical vision for our Salesforce platform, then translate that vision into a clear, sequenced action plan. You'll own both the strategy and execution; setting direction in ambiguity and then delivering the plan to make it real. Your impact is measured less by features shipped and more by the leverage you create: how much safer, faster, and more reliable you make the teams that build on top of you.

You'll model the standard for engineering excellence across Xero, staying hands‑on while building the technical capability and development practices of every pod that depends on the platform. This is a role where you'll Go Bold by challenging the status quo of our platform architecture, and Go Together by coaching and developing engineers across multiple disciplines.

The team and how they connect

The Salesforce platform team provides the foundation that other engineering pods depend on to build and operate their solutions at scale. We work closely with product, security, data governance, and AI operations teams to ensure our platform is secure, performant, and ready for the next generation of capabilities.

The role will focus on

• Technical Vision: Working with the EM to refine the technical vision for the platform, identifying the concrete steps to achieving that vision, and breaking these down to a granular level, so that these are executable by engineers in Q4 and subsequent quarters.

• Platform security: Own the cross-cutting security posture across the Salesforce platform, including access control frameworks, Connected Apps governance, vulnerability identification and remediation, and security vendor and tooling decisions.

• CI/CD and release engineering: Own the deployment pipeline and release‑engineering programme across our major release cycles each year. Champion automation, ensure pipelines are fit for purpose, and improve the developer experience for engineers shipping changes.

• Data governance and compliance: Own the platform side of data governance, including GDPR data deletion, retention and archival strategy, and the standards pods rely on for compliant data handling.

• Platform monitoring and limits: Maintain and grow observability across the platform, proactively manage org limits and platform‑level production risk, and prevent customer‑facing problems before they occur.

• D360 pipeline: Own the maintenance and growth of the D360 pipeline as it relates to Salesforce, and its integration with the rest of the platform.

• AI operations: Set direction for the platform's emerging AI operations agenda, including agent registry, observability, and evaluation baselines, and alignment of Agentforce agents to shared standards. Shape the approach where there is no established playbook, then build the plan to deliver it.

• Engineering standards and enablement: Contribute to Xero's engineering standards and frameworks, and work closely with engineering leadership to apply them across the platform and the pods that build on it. Identify capabilities that need to be grown and enable delivery teams to adopt them.

Where and how you can work

Based in Melbourne, you'll ideally work 1 day per week in our office (typically Thursday), giving you the flexibility to focus on deep technical work whilst staying connected to the team and collaborating face‑to‑face on strategic initiatives.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• You bring technical leadership experience delivering and operating Salesforce solutions at enterprise scale, with a platform‑engineering mindset—building for and enabling other engineering teams, not just end users

• You have depth and breadth of knowledge as a Salesforce developer. You’re interested in remaining hands‑on but are comfortable with planning, and with delegating execution to a team of capable engineers.

• You've owned CI/CD pipelines and release‑engineering modernisation across major release cycles, with hands‑on experience in GitHub, SFDX, and test automation

• You're able to make code and design decisions across multiple teams' products and lead or facilitate discussions on application and platform architecture

• You have expertise in distributed systems architecture and experience scaling and hardening platforms that many teams depend on, with a proven track record in security posture ownership

• You bring exposure to AI and agent platforms (such as Agentforce) and understand AI operations concepts like observability and evaluation—plus the appetite to set direction in a greenfield space

• You understand ‘servant leadership’ and will both support and role‑model a high‑trust, high‑performing culture.

• You're a strong coach and mentor who can elevate the capability of engineers across multiple disciplines whilst ensuring platform and pod work meets Xero's engineering standards