Platform API Architect & Senior Engineer

Xero; Vancouver; Hybrid; CAD 228,000 - 285,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellbeing days

Generous leave

Professional development budgets

Job summary

Xero in Vancouver seeks a Principal Engineer for Platform API to define and drive the long-term technical vision for exposing Xero's accounting capabilities to external partners and internal product teams.

This senior role sits at the intersection of platform engineering and AI, shaping API design, reliability, and safety for AI-powered automation across accounting workflows with a strong focus on developer experience and cross-team collaboration.

Qualifications

• Experience at scale in backend or platform engineering in multi-tenant SaaS or distributed systems.
• Designing external-facing APIs and SDKs with versioning and backward compatibility.
• Experience with event-driven architectures and designing for failure.
• Experience leading cross-team technical initiatives and RFCs.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive long-term technical vision for platform API.
• Lead cross-team initiatives; shape technical strategy.
• Collaborate with product management, AI/ML, and engineering squads.
• Mentor engineers and build communities of practice around platform/API thinking.

Skills

Backend engineering

Platform engineering

Multi-tenant SaaS

Distributed systems

APIs & SDKs design

Event-driven architecture

LLM/ML familiarity

Mentoring engineers

Tools

C#

Go

Java

gRPC

Graph technologies

Job description

Xero in Vancouver seeks a Principal Engineer for Platform API to define and drive the long-term technical vision for exposing Xero's accounting capabilities to external partners and internal product teams.

This senior role sits at the intersection of platform engineering and AI, shaping API design, reliability, and safety for AI-powered automation across accounting workflows with a strong focus on developer experience and cross-team collaboration.