Customer Incident Manager

Apply; Wellington; Hybrid; NZD 110,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Xero in Wellington is looking for an experienced Incident Manager to orchestrate incident response across engineering, product and support teams. You will lead investigations, assess impact and communications, and drive improvements to reduce recurrence and protect customer trust.

You will build robust processes, registers and playbooks to enable fast, coordinated responses. The role blends crisis management with strategic problem-solving in a hybrid work setup.

Qualifications

• Experience managing major incidents or complex issues.
• Ability to lead cross-functional teams through high-pressure situations.
• Strong customer-facing communication skills and a focus on minimizing impact.

Responsibilities

• Own incident management end-to-end from investigation through to post-incident reviews and recommendations.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams to implement short-term fixes and long-term solutions.
• Manage customer-facing communications during incidents to keep stakeholders informed and reassured.
• Develop processes and registers to prevent recurrence and build resilience.

Skills

Stakeholder management

Decision making under pressure

Cross-functional leadership

Customer service mindset

Incident management

Project delivery

Job description

The role & its impact

When incidents happen, every second counts. You'll be the key orchestrator managing major and minor incidents from the customer's perspective—working across teams to find solutions fast and keep everyone informed. You'll balance immediate crisis response with strategic problem-solving, ensuring customers experience minimal disruption and have clarity on what's happening and why.

You'll own incident management end-to-end: from investigation and impact assessment through to post-incident reviews and recommendations that prevent problems from happening again. You'll build the systems and processes that help teams respond confidently and reduce incidents before they occur, making you instrumental in building customer trust.

The team & how they connect

The incident management team works at the heart of Xero's customer operations, coordinating across engineering, product, support, and leadership to respond to issues that affect our customers. They're problem-solvers who thrive in fast-paced environments, bringing rigour and human empathy to every incident response. The team collaborates across geographic regions and departments, treating every issue as an opportunity to strengthen Xero's resilience.

The team is currently working on / Initially, the role may focus on

• Building and refining incident management processes and incident registers to prevent issues before they occur

• Managing customer-facing communications during incidents to keep stakeholders informed and reassured

• Coordinating cross-functional teams to implement both short-term fixes and long-term solutions

• Post-incident reviews and recommendations that help reduce recurrence

Where and how you can work

This role has a hybrid working arrangement of 3 days working from our offices and 2 days working from home.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• You'll bring strong stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to make informed decisions and lead teams through high-pressure situations toward resolution.

• You'll thrive on building relationships and collaborating effectively—your ability to influence across all levels and challenge assumptions respectfully makes you a natural leader in complex situations.

• You'll demonstrate a genuine customer service mentality, ensuring every decision prioritises minimising customer impact and keeping them informed with clarity.

• You'll bring proven experience managing major incidents or complex issues, alongside a track record of leading projects to successful delivery outcomes.

• You'll Go Together by coordinating specialist teams across regions and bringing the right people to the table to solve problems—comfortable working autonomously but knowing when to collaborate.

• You'll Go Fast by ship ideas, test solutions, and improve them—taking initiative and pushing forward in fast-paced, high-profile environments without waiting for perfect clarity.

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