Principal Engineer - Payments Products & Platform

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

Job summary

Xero is seeking a Principal Engineer to shape technical strategy across Payments Products, Experiences and Platform. You will influence multiple teams, mentor engineers, and help define a multi-year payments architecture.

The role sits in a global Principal community, with hands-on leadership across AWS-backed microservices and data layers. Based in Australia, you’ll work in a hybrid setup with Sydney or Melbourne offices and collaborate across time zones to enable scalable, resilient systems

Qualifications

• Experience designing and running large-scale distributed systems in production.
• API-first thinking across web, API and data layers.
• Fluency in at least one modern backend language and cloud-native platforms (ideally AWS).
• Hands-on approach: pairing, spikes and code in legacy-heavy systems.
• Strong interest in AI tooling to automate tasks and improve outcomes.
• Mentor Staff and Senior engineers and drive cross-team initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Shape technical strategy across multiple teams and translate complex requirements into scalable systems.
• Maintain hands-on involvement while setting engineering standards and practices.
• Collaborate with senior stakeholders to align product, engineering and business goals.
• Lead and mentor engineers across the Principal community within Xero.
• Drive multi-year payments architecture and global readiness for new markets.

Skills

Distributed systems

API-first

Cloud-native

Mentoring

A/B testing

AI tooling

Tools

AWS

SQL

NoSQL

C#

Java

Go

C++

Job description

The role

Xero reimagined accounting software. Now we’re reimagining how small businesses get paid and how money moves. We're making a critical, multi-year investment in two connected engineering portfolios, Payments Products & Experiences and Payments Platform, and we're hiring a Principal Engineer for each. As our three-year payments strategy reaches a turning point, you'll help shape what comes next, with domain-level influence over the next two to three years.

The role

Xero reimagined accounting software. Now we’re reimagining how small businesses get paid and how money moves. We're making a critical, multi-year investment in two connected engineering portfolios, Payments Products & Experiences and Payments Platform, and we're hiring a Principal Engineer for each. As our three-year payments strategy reaches a turning point, you'll help shape what comes next, with domain-level influence over the next two to three years. You'll shape technical strategy across multiple teams, partnering with senior stakeholders to turn complex requirements into scalable, resilient systems. Staying close to the technical detail, you'll set the example for a portfolio of 40 to 50 engineers. You'll also join a global community of Principal Engineers across Xero, driving engineering standards, architecture, and best practices. You'll Go Bold by setting long-term direction, and Go Together by bringing product, engineering and senior stakeholders with you.

The teams

Payments Products & Experiences: this portfolio is made up of our Get Paid and Growth teams, builds the checkout, payment methods, flexible payments and AI payment agents that help small businesses get paid on time. Payments Platform: this portfolio is the engine underneath, with provider integrations, bill payments and a single, product-agnostic API that other Xero teams build on.

The teams are currently working on

• Tech stack: microservices across web, API and data layers, built in languages such as C#, Java, Go or C++, running on AWS with SQL and NoSQL data stores.
• Current focus: reviewing existing payments systems to work out what to extend, migrate or rebuild, alongside Growth experiments and AI-powered payment chasing.
• Future focus: a multi-year payments architecture covering agentic payment workflows, payments inside AI assistants and recurring payments.
• Global scale: replatforming payment methods and designing global rails and a ledger ready for new markets.

Where And How You Can Work

You’ll be based in Sydney or Melbourne, working a hybrid model that blends time together in our modern offices with the flexibility of working from home. Boost days bring teams together to connect and collaborate in person. With colleagues across Australia and the US and payment flows that run around the clock, you’ll also work across time zones.

Some of the things we’re looking for

• You bring deep experience designing and running large-scale distributed systems in production, balancing reliability, performance and cost, and any payments or fintech experience is a real plus.
• API-first thinking is second nature, and you’re at home across web, API and data layers, with fluency in at least one modern backend language, SQL and NoSQL stores, and cloud-native platforms, ideally AWS.
• Legacy-heavy systems are a puzzle you enjoy, and you make clear, practical calls on whether to extend, migrate or build while staying hands-on through pairing, spikes and code.
• A strong interest in utilising AI tooling is essential, as you will model how to use these technologies to automate tasks and improve engineering outcomes.
• Your background shows a deep curiosity for growth hacking and a proven ability to design and analyse A/B tests that drive product usage.
• You’ll Go Further by mentoring Staff and Senior engineers, shaping cross-team initiatives with Xero’s Principal community and setting standards that lift engineering across Xero.