---
title: 'Principal Engineer - Backend/Platform Engineering at Xero'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/principal-engineer-backend-platform-engineering-xero-sydney-w8wxra9hxgam'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-07'
---

# Principal Engineer - Backend/Platform Engineering at Xero

- **Company:** [Xero](https://feeny.ai/companies/xero)
- **Location:** Sydney, Australia
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-10-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/xero/de656433-2f01-471f-9a27-a062a859c4ef

## Job description

## The role & impact

As a Principal Engineer in our Engineering Productivity team, you'll partner with our engineering community to build frictionless, developer-first platform tools that remove barriers and empower engineers to focus on what they do best; shipping high-impact software faster, safer, and at scale. Your work directly shapes how thousands of engineers across Xero work, influencing the tools, practices, and cultures that enable them to succeed. You'll tackle some of the most complex technical challenges across our organisation, from optimising developer workflows to scaling our AI-native development practices. In this role, you're not assigned to a single team; instead, you'll work across our engineering landscape to identify and solve the highest-impact problems - collaborating with multiple teams and stakeholders to drive meaningful change.

The team & how they connect Engineering Productivity is a specialist team within Xero's engineering organisation, focused on enabling our developer community through platforms and tooling. We collaborate closely with product teams, infrastructure teams, and technical leadership across the organisation to remove friction and accelerate delivery. Our team operates with high trust, psychological safety, and a genuine commitment to diverse perspectives - we believe the best solutions come from teams that think differently.

The team is currently working on

- Inner-Loop Mastery: Supercharging local coding speed and developer experience through our Xero AI Engineering Toolkit
- Frictionless Delivery: Accelerating pull request reviews and environment provisioning to unblock our outer-loop development flow
- Unified Tooling: Consolidating our developer toolchain to eliminate context switching and cognitive load across our engineering teams
- Uncompromising Quality: Balancing speed with engineering excellence using Tech Health Scorecards and sustainable development practices

Where and how you can work This is a distributed role across Australia and New Zealand. Our teams are predominantly remote-first, with occasional in-person gatherings to strengthen connections and tackle complex problems together. We hold 1-2 on-site sessions per quarter (typically in Melbourne or Wellington/Auckland), and we maintain flexible working hours and arrangements to support your personal circumstances. We believe great technical work happens when people have autonomy over how and where they work.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

- You bring demonstrated expertise in DevEx, DevOps, or Platform Engineering, with a proven track record of building products and platforms that engineers love to use
- You possess a platform-as-a-product mindset - you think deeply about your customers (engineers), understand their pain points, and design solutions that scale elegantly
- You're comfortable navigating ambiguous, rapidly evolving environments and can thrive when roadmaps shift and requirements remain fluid - you Go Bold and Go Fast even when the path isn't entirely clear
- Your communication skills enable you to influence and collaborate with senior technical stakeholders and executives across the organisation, translating complex technical concepts into compelling narratives
- You bring either exposure to or hands-on experience with AI-native development practices, spec-driven development, or modern AI development lifecycles that shape how we build tomorrow
- You mentor and grow others through influence and example rather than authority, helping engineers and teams level up and discover their potential

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.

## About Xero

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Xero provides cloud-based accounting and financial management software for small businesses, serving over 4.9 million customers worldwide.
- **Entity Type**: Public (ASX: XRO, S&P/ASX 200 component)
- **Headquarters**: Wellington, New Zealand
- **Founded**: July 6, 2006
- **Founders**: Rod Drury, Hamish Edwards

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Cloud accounting software (SaaS)
- **Target customers**: Small businesses, accountants, and bookkeepers (B2B)
- **Mission**: To make life better for small businesses globally by automating routine tasks and delivering actionable insights.

## Products & Services
- **Xero Accounting Software**: Cloud-based platform for invoicing, bank reconciliation, expense tracking, payroll, and financial reporting. Sold by subscription (Starter, Standard, Premium tiers).
- **JAX – AI Finance Partner**: An AI-powered assistant integrated into Xero that automates routine tasks and provides insights to help businesses grow.
- **Xero Ecosystem**: Over 1,000 third-party app integrations via the Xero App Store, covering payments, inventory, CRM, and more.
- **Xero for Nonprofits**: Discounted subscriptions (25% off) for eligible nonprofit and community organisations.
- **Xero for Purpose**: Social impact initiatives including financial literacy programmes (Unlock Your Numbers), sustainability tools (Sumday carbon app), and the Xero Beautiful Business Fund (NZ$750,000+ in funding annually).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed in provided sources (publicly traded with market cap available on ASX; latest data not included in search results).
- **Key Metric**: Annual Revenue NZ$2.103 billion (FY2025); Net income NZ$227.8 million (FY2025).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Board Chair David Thodey; CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. In June 2025, Xero announced an agreement to acquire Melio, a New York-based payments provider, for $2.5 billion.
- **Growth Signals**: Achieved Rule of 40 outcomes of 41.0% (May 2024) and 43.9% (Nov 2024). Customer base grew to 4.9 million. Headcount of 4,610 employees (2025). Expanding globally with offices in New Zealand, Australia, UK, US, Canada, South Africa, and Singapore.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Market leader** in cloud accounting across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK.
- **AI-first approach** with JAX, embedded directly into the core product to reduce manual work.
- **Extensive integration ecosystem** (1,000+ apps) creating high switching costs for customers.
- **Strong brand trust** built over 19 years with a focus on small business success.

## Strategic Focus
- **AI and automation**: Deepening AI capabilities (JAX) to deliver predictive insights and automate finance workflows.
- **Payments expansion**: Acquisition of Melio to strengthen payments capabilities for small businesses.
- **Sustainability**: Reducing carbon emissions (72% reduction in scope 1 & 2), offering free carbon accounting tools, and supporting small business sustainability.
- **Social impact**: Scaling programmes like the Beautiful Business Fund and financial literacy initiatives.

## Why Work Here
- **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.

## Sources
1. [Wikipedia – Xero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xero)
2. [Xero About Page](https://www.xero.com/au/about/)
3. [Xero Careers – Inside Xero](https://careers.xero.com/inside-xero/)
4. [Xero Careers – Teams](https://careers.xero.com/)
5. [Xero Homepage](https://www.xero.com/)

## Other roles at Xero

- [Customer Experience Specialist - Melio](https://feeny.ai/job/customer-experience-specialist-melio-xero-manchester-0apnfjtyx359) — Manchester, United Kingdom
- [Engineering Manager - Cloud Networks](https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-manager-cloud-networks-xero-melbourne-8gqw69bv1r7w) — Melbourne, Australia
- [Lead Engineer - Front End (React)](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-engineer-front-end-react-xero-wellington-9sjxsd4a6d13) — Wellington, New Zealand
- [Senior Engineer - AI Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-engineer-ai-platform-xero-melbourne-wy84yt8bba9z) — Melbourne, Australia
- [Financial Accountant](https://feeny.ai/job/financial-accountant-xero-wellington-0bjk26repmzk) — Wellington, New Zealand
- [Lead Engineer - Front End (React)](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-engineer-front-end-react-xero-melbourne-k9j5m5627ab0) — Melbourne, Australia
- [Accounting Professional? Discover a new career in SaaS Sales with Xero](https://feeny.ai/job/accounting-professional-discover-a-new-career-in-saas-sales-with-xero-xero-sd3m7hjzea5f) — Brisbane, Australia
- [Solutions Consultant](https://feeny.ai/job/solutions-consultant-xero-brisbane-rj5t374ksh02) — Brisbane, Australia
- [Engineer - Payments](https://feeny.ai/job/engineer-payments-xero-vancouver-v6a1s8dc9eqt) — Vancouver, Canada
- [Data Engineer - Performance Insights](https://feeny.ai/job/data-engineer-performance-insights-xero-sydney-ndt7sgmv8xdm) — Sydney, Australia