Principal Engineer: Cloud Architecture & Tech Leader (Hybrid)

Xero; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Xero in Sydney, Australia is seeking Principal Engineers to drive technical excellence across distributed systems. You will shape architecture, mentor teams, and raise engineering standards to deliver reliable, scalable software powering millions of small businesses.

You will lead cross-team collaboration, push modern delivery practices, and influence strategic technology decisions while balancing hands-on delivery with high-impact guidance.

Qualifications

• Extensive software engineering background with cloud and distributed systems.
• Proven ability to refactor monoliths into modular microservices.
• Deep knowledge of automated testing, CI/CD, and domain-driven design.
• Strong leadership, coaching, and capability-building skills.
• Excellent communication with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Design, refactor, and modernise monolithic architecture into scalable microservices.
• Establish foundational CI/CD practices, automated testing, and robust testing frameworks.
• Collaborate with AWS, C#, React, Kubernetes, and distributed event-driven systems.
• Define architectural patterns and contribute to company-wide technical standards.

Skills

Distributed systems

Technical leadership

Mentoring

Architecting systems

Communication

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

React

C#

Terraform

Job description

Xero in Sydney, Australia is seeking Principal Engineers to drive technical excellence across distributed systems. You will shape architecture, mentor teams, and raise engineering standards to deliver reliable, scalable software powering millions of small businesses.

You will lead cross-team collaboration, push modern delivery practices, and influence strategic technology decisions while balancing hands-on delivery with high-impact guidance.