Engineering Manager - ML & AI

Xero; Wellington; On-site; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Xero is seeking an Engineering Manager for the Machine Learning & AI Team to lead a high-performing group of ML and platform engineers. You will convert research into scalable production infrastructure, focus on system health, and advance MLOps maturity while balancing delivery with reliability.

Partner with senior ICs to guide architecture and mentor engineers, driving AI-native workflows across the software lifecycle and ensuring the team can operate at Xero's scale.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of leading and developing engineers.
• Strong architectural and system design judgement.
• Experience translating business goals into executable engineering plans.
• Delivery of roadmaps in fast-paced environments.
• Hands-on contribution to production code when necessary.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the ML & AI team, aligning goals with production infrastructure.
• Shape technical architecture and cross-functional collaboration with data science and product teams.
• Drive MLOps maturity, observability and reliability of AI systems at scale.

Skills

People leadership

System design

Business-aligned planning

Roadmap delivery

Hands-on code for incidents

ML/AI familiarity

Job description

The role & impact

As Engineering Manager in Machine Learning & AI Team, you'll lead a high-performing, inclusive team of ML and platform engineers, responsible for turning research and models into production-grade ML infrastructure that runs at scale. You'll balance predictable delivery with a relentless focus on system health, taking the lead on MLOps maturity, observability and the operational realities of running AI systems in production, not just shipping features.

You'll work closely with senior individual contributors, including staff and principal engineers, who shape the technical architecture, while you focus on team growth, delivery rigour and championing AI-native workflows across the software development lifecycle. This is a role for someone who wants to build both the systems and the people capable of running AI at Xero's scale.

The Team & How They Connect

You'll join Xero's Data & AI organisation, within the AI Products division, reporting to the GM of ML Engineering. The team takes research and models from applied scientists and turns them into safe, scalable, production ML infrastructure that millions of small businesses rely on every day. It's a close, cross-functional group that partners tightly with Applied Science, Data Engineering and Product to move ideas from prototype to production.

The team is currently working on

• Production ML infrastructure and MLOps supporting Xero's AI-native product suite
• Systems powering JAX (Just Ask Xero), Xero's conversational GenAI assistant
• Auto Bank Rec and smart document capture, including AI-powered transaction matching and extraction from bills and receipts
• Future work extending cash flow forecasting and other embedded ML capabilities

Where And How You Can Work

We support a flexible working model that empowers you to balance your professional and personal life. You will have the option to work in a hybrid capacity, combining the focus of remote work with the collaboration of our office spaces and team boost days to foster connection and alignment.

Here are some of the things we're looking for, for this role

• You'll bring a strong track record of leading, coaching and developing engineers, with real experience building team capability over time
• Strong technical judgement across architecture, system design and engineering trade-offs is part of how you naturally operate
• You've translated business goals into executable engineering plans, balancing short-term delivery against long-term system health
• Delivering roadmaps predictably in fast-paced, evolving environments is familiar territory for you
• You stay hands-on when it counts, comfortable writing, reviewing or debugging production code to unblock your team or support an incident
• Experience with machine learning or AI systems is a bonus rather than a requirement, though genuine curiosity about the space will help you thrive here