Payments Platform Lead Engineer — Hybrid

Xero; San Mateo (CA); Hybrid; USD 206,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical benefits

Dental benefits

Vision benefits

401(k) match

Paid time off 21 days

Wellbeing leave

Xero leave (Xtra Leave)

Job summary

Xero is seeking a Lead Engineer for the Payments Platform, blending hands-on coding with architectural leadership. You will own architecture and end-to-end delivery for high-throughput money movement capabilities, influencing products across markets.

The role emphasizes shipping production code, mentoring engineers, and shaping engineering practices within a growing team operating in a hybrid environment, with connections to Vancouver and San Mateo.

Qualifications

• Proven track record delivering highly available distributed backend systems.
• Experience building platforms from early idea to production and evolving them as adoption grows.
• Strong understanding of system architecture, API design, and database trade-offs.
• Hands-on with modern backend stacks and cloud-native platforms (AWS).
• Leadership: mentoring engineers, setting direction, fostering an inclusive culture.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive architectural direction for payments platform area.
• Own API design, reliability, security, and operational excellence end-to-end.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to turn business needs into resilient engineering solutions.
• Contribute production code and proofs of concept while guiding teams and practices.

Skills

Distributed backend systems

APIs

Cloud AWS

Technical leadership

Production code

AI tooling in development

Tools

AWS

C#

Java

Go

C++

Job description

Xero is seeking a Lead Engineer for the Payments Platform, blending hands-on coding with architectural leadership. You will own architecture and end-to-end delivery for high-throughput money movement capabilities, influencing products across markets.

The role emphasizes shipping production code, mentoring engineers, and shaping engineering practices within a growing team operating in a hybrid environment, with connections to Vancouver and San Mateo.