---
title: 'Senior Search Engineer at Xero'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-search-engineer-xero-melbourne-ny5x26aej25n'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Senior Search Engineer at Xero

- **Company:** [Xero](https://feeny.ai/companies/xero)
- **Location:** Melbourne, Australia
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-08-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/xero/bec9946f-d4fc-4d66-8cda-39aa93dba6dc

## Job description

## The role / impact

This is a role for a search specialist who wants to work at genuine scale. As a Senior Engineer on Xero's Search team, you will help maintain and evolve one of the largest search clusters in the Southern Hemisphere; part of an entire vertical stack delivered to customers. The work is both meaningful and technically stretching: keeping hundreds of millions of searchable documents at global scale running at 99.9% uptime, while contributing to a significant platform rebuild that will shape the next generation of Xero's growth. Beyond the day-to-day, this role is about real ownership. You will contribute across both search-specific and generalist engineering work, raise and review pull requests, and lead projects. If you are someone who cares about quality and gets energised by hard problems at scale, this is a place where your work will genuinely matter. The team & how they connect The Search team is a small, tight-knit group spread across Melbourne, New South Wales and New Zealand. You will partner closely with a team who are building the ingestion layer for our platform, a dedicated Product Manager, and the Catalyst Platform team who coordinate changes and releases across services. The team brings a high-quality mindset to everything they do, and solves challenging technical problems together. The team is currently working on

- A large-scale search platform rebuild - a multi-year project at the heart of Xero's infrastructure, using a search cluster that processes that processes hundreds of millions of documents at global scale
- Maintaining and evolving the cluster to keep systems running at 99.9% uptime
- Collaborating with the ODL team on the ingestion pipeline for the new platform
- Future capability development in data and AI-adjacent search, as the platform continues to evolve

Where and how you can work This role can be based in Australia or NZ. You will have genuine flexibility in where you work day to day. The team comes together in Melbourne approximately every six months - a chance to connect, align, and spend time in person with colleagues across regions. Xero also offers boost days, giving you the option to work from the office and collaborate with the broader Xero community when it suits you. Here are some of the things we are looking for

- You bring strong search engineering experience and know what it takes to build, maintain and scale search systems in a production environment
- Solid software engineering and development fundamentals are part of your toolkit, and you are comfortable contributing to both search-specific and generalist engineering work
- Quality comes first for you - you hold a high bar for the code you write and review, and care about doing things properly
- Working collaboratively with others comes naturally to you, whether that is with engineering, product or infrastructure teams across a distributed environment
- Bonus points if you have exposure to data or AI tooling, though this is not a requirement to be considered

## 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

- [Small Business Onboarding Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/small-business-onboarding-specialist-xero-cape-town-ckyegg0g1wfz) — Cape Town, South Africa
- [Sales Development Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/sales-development-specialist-xero-melbourne-shak0pynckqn) — Melbourne, Australia
- [Customer Growth Specialist](https://feeny.ai/job/customer-growth-specialist-xero-melbourne-nttx72xfyyvx) — Melbourne, Australia
- [Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/account-executive-xero-auckland-24xhvx12wnte) — Auckland, New Zealand
- [SEM Senior Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/sem-senior-manager-xero-brisbane-gj9tkq583dnm) — Brisbane, Australia
- [SEM Senior Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/sem-senior-manager-xero-sydney-wjxe3syb7874) — Sydney, Australia
- [SEM Senior Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/sem-senior-manager-xero-melbourne-38tzvghsmasf) — Melbourne, Australia
- [SEM Senior Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/sem-senior-manager-xero-auckland-94sjyamt3khc) — Auckland, New Zealand
- [Senior Engineer - Database](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-engineer-database-xero-auckland-9rfj2zffbkcs) — Auckland, New Zealand
- [Senior Product Manager - Payments & APIs](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-product-manager-payments-apis-xero-vancouver-8ars13emnqra) — Vancouver, Canada