Principal Engineer: Architecture Leader & Tech Mentor

Apply; Auckland; Hybrid; NZD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Xero is seeking a Principal Engineer to work across product teams to create and deliver world-class software at speed. You will help define engineering excellence, evolve architecture in line with product strategy, and drive data-driven decisions that scale to customer needs.

You’ll lead initiatives across engineering leadership, break down silos, mentor engineers, and participate in recruiting and community engagement to grow Xero’s engineering brand.

Qualifications

• Proven technical leadership in large, complex cloud-native initiatives.
• Executive communication of complex tech to exec leaders.
• Strategic architectural vision aligning delivery with strategy.
• Pragmatic problem solving with clear outcomes.
• Technical debt management with remediation focus.
• Mentorship and culture fostering inclusive, safe teams.

Responsibilities

• Guide engineering practices across multiple teams and set portfolio-wide direction.
• Design scalable, reliable cloud-native apps and optimize deployment pipelines.
• Promote quality standards and define SLOs, ensure security and data guidelines.
• Proactively prevent production issues with tooling and on-call rotation.
• Shape DevOps thinking and pay down tech debt.
• Mentor engineers and foster an inclusive, high-performing culture.
• Participate in interviewing and engage with the external tech community.

Skills

Technical leadership

Executive communication

Strategic architecture

Pragmatic problem solving

Technical debt management

Mentorship & culture

Job description

Xero is seeking a Principal Engineer to work across product teams to create and deliver world-class software at speed. You will help define engineering excellence, evolve architecture in line with product strategy, and drive data-driven decisions that scale to customer needs.

You’ll lead initiatives across engineering leadership, break down silos, mentor engineers, and participate in recruiting and community engagement to grow Xero’s engineering brand.