
Associate Security Engineer at Xero (Melbourne, Australia)
Xero· Melbourne, Australia·
Role details
Xero at a glance
Cloud accounting and financial-management software for small businesses and their advisors.
Xero is cloud-based accounting software for small businesses and the accountants and bookkeepers who serve them. It automates invoicing, bank reconciliation, bill and expense capture, reporting and cash-flow forecasting, and connects to more than 1,000 third-party apps. Its newer AI agent, JAX, automates routine tasks and answers plain-language questions about a business's finances.
Job description
The role and its impact
As an Associate Security Engineer in our Security Defence team, you'll help design, build and continuously improve the capabilities we rely on to detect, investigate and respond to security threats. You'll work alongside Security Operations, Security Response, Engineering, Product, CX and Legal, turning threat intelligence and security requirements into practical, reliable controls that keep Xero and our customers safe.
You’ll develop your engineering capability through delivery, pairing, incident participation, and learning from more experienced engineers while contributing to the protection of Xero and our customers.
The team and how they connect
Security Defence sits at the heart of how Xero detects and responds to threats, working across SIEM, SOAR, EDR and cloud security tooling to keep our platform and customers protected. The team works closely with Security Operations, Security Response, Engineering and Product to turn insight into action, and prides itself on a high-trust, blameless, learning-oriented culture where questions and curiosity are always welcome.
The team is currently working on / Initially, you will focus on
- Monitoring, investigating, and responding to security alerts and suspected incidents with guidance from experienced engineers and analysts.
- Contribute to detection, monitoring, enrichment, and response workflows across security platforms such as SIEM, SOAR, EDR, cloud security, and related services.
- Building and improving detection content, integrations, dashboards and alerting across our security platforms
- Developing runbooks, playbooks and automations that reduce manual effort and speed up response
- Expanding threat-intelligence-led detection engineering and automation coverage across Xero
Where and how you can work
This role is based in our Melbourne office, offering a hybrid working model that balances local team presence with a global scope of work. You will have the flexibility to work from home while connecting with your colleagues in our modern office space during designated boost days.
Here are some of the things we're looking for
- A growth mindset and real curiosity in security engineering, cyber security, software engineering, cloud security, detection engineering, or a closely related discipline.
- Comfortable picking up an unfamiliar codebase or platform and applying established patterns with guidance.
- You Go Bold by turning threat intelligence and security research into practical, measurable detections and controls.
- Clear written and verbal communication, including sharing progress, blockers and context openly with your team.
- A collaborative approach, you enjoy pairing and feedback, and Go Together by lifting the people around you.
- Hands-on experience scripting, debugging, automating or building small integrations, along with an interest in using AI-assisted tools responsibly.
- Experience working in an engineering, security, IT, operations, or technology team and collaborating with others to deliver change.
Apply even if your experience isn't a perfect match! At Xero, we hire based on your skills, passion, and the unique perspective you can bring to enhance our culture and team.
Why work at Xero
- Culture: Values-driven, human-centric organisation with a focus on making a tangible impact on small businesses globally.
- Flexibility: Emphasises a flexible environment and time for what matters most (remote/hybrid policy not explicitly stated but implied).
- Perks & benefits:
- One paid day off per year for volunteering (Community Connect programme).
- Free access to Sumday carbon accounting app for employees.
- Financial literacy resources and mentorship programmes.
- Engineering & innovation: Dedicated Engineering and Data & AI teams (open roles visible on careers page). Global collaboration across 7+ countries.
- Diversity & inclusion: Indigenous inclusion initiatives (te ao Māori in NZ, Reconciliation Action Plan in Australia), support for Indigenous communities.
- Sustainability focus: Employees can contribute to environmental goals through company-wide initiatives.