Engineering Manager (Platform)

Xero; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 140,000 - 210,000; Part time

Job summary

Xero is seeking an Engineering Manager to lead a platform team of eight engineers responsible for high-traffic services used by thousands of organisations in Xero. You’ll guide delivery, support stability improvements, and shape the long‑term architecture as we move away from legacy databases.

You will collaborate across Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne, fostering growth and strong cross‑site partnerships.

Qualifications

• Experience leading a team of engineers in a SaaS/platform environment.
• Ability to set strategy for architecture and platform services.
• Strong collaboration across multiple sites and time zones.

Responsibilities

• Guide a platform team of eight engineers to build and operate high-traffic services.
• Drive stability improvements and recovery work from outages.
• Plan migration away from legacy MyXero database toward future-ready architecture.
• Foster growth and cross-site collaboration across Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne.

Skills

Software engineering background

Team leadership

Scale experience

Infrastructure knowledge

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related

Job description

The role and it's impact

As Engineering Manager, you will guide a team of eight engineers who build and run the platform services that represent organisations in Xero. These are high-throughput services that sit behind much of what our customers do every day, so the work matters and the stakes are real. You will help the team grow, keep delivery steady and make space for the people who know these systems best to do their finest work.

Your first year is about taking stability to the next stage. After a period of recovery work, you will help the team set a path away from our legacy MyXero database and towards an architecture ready for the next twenty years of Xero. You will Go Bold by asking the questions that shape that path, while respecting the depth of knowledge already in the team.

The Team And How They Connect

You will join a platform team that looks after core services with very high usage and reach. Many of the engineers have deep knowledge of our systems, built up over many years, and they are spread across Auckland, Wellington and Melbourne. They Go Together through open conversation and shared ownership, whichever city they log in from.

Initially, you will focus on

• Keeping our core systems steady, building on the recovery work the team has already done after recent outages
• Planning how services move away from the legacy database
• Shaping a long-term architecture path for our platform services
• Getting to know the team, their expertise and how they work across three locations

Where And How You Can Work

We’re ideally looking for this role in Auckland or Wellington, and open to remote workers too. For those who are able to attend an office, we operate a hybrid model with a mix of time in on-site and time at home.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• You bring a software engineering background, with enough technical depth to ask thoughtful questions about how things are built.
• Your time in a larger tech/SaaS company means you know what it takes to guide a team through scale.
• You Go Bold by questioning the status quo with curiosity and care, while valuing the expertise of long-standing engineers.
• You are comfortable around high-traffic, business-critical services, and a working knowledge of infrastructure tooling is a bonus.
• You Go Further by turning a long-term architecture vision into a plan the team can rally behind.
• Colleagues would say you Go Together naturally, growing people and building good working relationships across locations and time zones.

Xero uses AI to help screen applications based on job-related qualifications. These tools assist our recruiters but do not make automated hiring decisions. A human recruiter reviews all candidates before any hiring action is taken.