Lead Engineer- Syft

Apply; Greater London; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Xero is seeking a Lead Engineer for its UK pod to drive architectural direction and deliver scalable software. You will lead a hands-on team, define solutions, and ensure delivery across design, delivery, deployment and support.

You will mentor engineers, improve practices, and collaborate with peers to align with product and architectural standards, while enabling faster value delivery from complex systems.

Qualifications

• Experience coaching and mentoring engineers to grow technical capabilities.
• Strong communication skills to explain complex ideas clearly.
• Growth mindset and willingness to learn, experiment, and share knowledge.
• Ability to lead incident responses and guide testing strategies.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering direction for the UK pod and align with product goals.
• Support engineers to deliver high-quality, scalable software.
• Improve development practices and reduce knowledge bottlenecks.
• Collaborate across teams to ensure architectural alignment.

Skills

Coaching and mentoring

Communication skills

Growth mindset

Incident response leadership

Collaborative problem-solving

Tools

Node.js

AWS

Job description

The role

You will collaborate with peers across Xero to create and deliver software to our customers. By modelling engineering excellence, you will support your team to grow their technical capability, improve development practices, and tackle open-ended architectural challenges.

Your work will directly shape the technical direction of the product group, breaking down silos and driving multi-year product or platform goals. Through data-driven decisions and smart simplification of complex systems, you will help solve customer problems effectively and release value early.

The team

This cross-functional engineering team focuses on building and managing software that solves complex problems at scale. Working in a collaborative and safe environment, team members coordinate closely to align technical designs with broader architectural standards. Together, they foster a culture of ownership, experimentation, and feedback to deliver high-quality outcomes.

The team is currently working on

The Syft UK pod is working on high-impact reporting and insights engineering across Xero. Current work includes Budgets API and Reporting integration, the Benchmarking rebuild, and resilience improvements to the Syft-X API as demand grows from both customer-facing experiences and internal consumers.

As a Lead Engineer, you’ll be a hands‑on technical leader: setting direction, supporting engineers to deliver well, and improving how the team works across design, delivery, deployment and support. You’ll help us build smaller, safer changes, strengthen operational visibility, and reduce dependency on a small number of people for critical knowledge and production work

Where and how you can work

This role offers a remote working environment designed to support collaboration and balance. If you prefer you can work hybrid from one of our modern office spaces, designated in‑office boost days to connect with other teams in person.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• You bring expertise in designing secure, scalable distributed systems and managing software at scale with proficiency in our core tech stack, Node js, AWS.

• A background in coaching and mentoring engineers, helping them grow their technical capabilities, is essential.

• You possess strong communication skills, with the ability to navigate complex technical ideas and build alignment.

• Your growth mindset drives a passion for continuous learning, experimentation, and sharing technical knowledge.

• An ability to lead incident responses, resolve failure patterns, and guide quality testing strategies will be highly valued.

• You offer a collaborative approach to problem-solving, welcoming diverse perspectives and encouraging a healthy team culture.

Apply even if your experience isn't a perfect match!

At Xero, we hire based on your skills, passion, and the unique perspective you can bring to enhance our culture and team.