Senior Product Manager - 12 month fixed-term contract

Xero; Auckland; On-site; NZD 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company in Auckland is seeking a Product Leader to shape the strategy and roadmap for foundational products. This role involves driving customer-centric innovation, overseeing product delivery, and managing the entire product lifecycle. A strong technical background and experience in product management are essential to address complex challenges and enhance customer experiences. Competitive benefits include generous leave policies and medical insurance.

Benefits

Generous paid leave

Employee Share Plan

Flexible working hours

Qualifications

• Strong product management experience with a technical background.
• Experience with engineering teams and internal customers.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategic framing of products.
• Engage customers for insight collection.
• Identify customer problems and frame solutions.

Skills

Product management experience

Technical background

Analytical skills

Experience with engineering teams

Communication skills

Job description

Our Purpose

At Xero, we’re here to help supercharge small businesses. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we’re not only making life better for small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.

About the team and role

The Foundations team in Payroll plays a critical role in enabling our core Payroll product to scale. We are the backbone of Payroll’s platform and foundation - building and evolving the Payroll Databases, Eventing and Public API’s that power the numerous complex payroll capabilities, ensuring they interact securely, seamlessly and reliability for our Xero customers

As a Product leader in this space, you’ll shape the strategy and roadmap for the foundational products that every other payroll product team relies on. You’ll play a key role in shaping the foundational products that not only supports today’s needs but also enables AI-driven insights, automation, and smarter experiences in the future of Payroll. Your primary customer will be other engineering and product teams, meaning the solutions you design will directly accelerate their ability to deliver new features, performance improvements, and world-class reliability for our Xero customers.

If you’re excited about building AI powered platform products, driving cross-functional impact, and solving complex system challenges at scale, join us on the Foundations team.

Please note this is a 12-month fixed-term contract for parental leave cover.

What you'll do

• Strategise Product Vision: Lead the strategic framing of products within Xero's overall strategy and future objectives.
• Drive Customer-Centricity: Lead customer engagement, research, and insight collection to embed customer data in decision-making and risk assessment.
• Problem Identification & Solution Framing: Identify valuable customer problems and comprehensively frame solutions for testing and refinement, even in complex environments.
• Product Line Strategy & Resourcing: Develop and secure funding and resources for the product line strategy.
• Oversee Product Delivery & Launch: Lead the development of product roadmaps, release strategies, and ensure effective product launches.
• Manage Product Risks: Take responsibility for managing non-functional risks (security, privacy, compliance, etc.) and lead trade-off decisions.
• Monitor & Optimise Performance: Consistently review, monitor, and analyze commercial and customer results, leading iterative improvements to existing products.
• Guide End-to-End Product Lifecycle: Manage products across their entire lifecycle, from launch to sunset, ensuring continuity and strategic alignment.
• Develop Product Practice & Team: Contribute to developing and implementing product practices, and train, coach, and recruit team members.

What you'll bring with you

• Strong product management experience, preferably with an engineering/technical background who has transitioned into product.
• Experience working closely with engineering teams and with internal customers.
• Can get technically deep and engage in detailed engineering design opportunities.
• Can execute an API-first strategy and support engineering efficiency goals.
• Have a strong interest in AI and how it can improve outcomes for customers and Xeros.
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to interpret complex data and translate insights into actionable strategies.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills, comfort with presenting to senior leadership.
• A growth mindset, with a passion for learning, innovation, and pushing boundaries.

Why Xero?

Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, free medical insurance, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.