Every day, millions of small businesses, their accountants and bookkeepers, and the partner apps they connect to rely on Xero to be lightning fast, dependable and secure by design.

Operating at the very foundation of that ecosystem is Ranjeet Suri and his engineering team based out of Xero’s growing tech hub in Vancouver, BC. Responsible for Xero’s Supergraph platform and core API infrastructure, Ranjeet’s team is building the unified access layer that connects core accounting capabilities with third-party apps, partner ecosystems, and emerging AI agent workflows.

We sat down with Ranjeet to talk about untangling legacy services, scaling schema federation, designing infrastructure specifically for AI consumers, and what makes joining the Vancouver hub an unmissable career opportunity.

Building the unified access layer: the power of the Supergraph

Product engineers at Xero don’t need to spend weeks rebuilding foundational access, observability, or security patterns each time they ship a new feature. Ranjeet’s team provides the platform that handles those foundations for them.

“Our team helps Xero’s product engineers build reliable, scalable, and observable services without having to reinvent the wheel every time. We also build a unified access layer across our ecosystem, connecting core accounting capabilities with third-party apps, partners, and AI workflows — keeping it secure without creating messy, fragmented workarounds.”

By unifying vastly different API surfaces under a federated Supergraph, the team replaces one-off integrations with a clean, cohesive developer experience for both internal engineering teams and external ecosystem partners.

High-stakes Tier-0 challenges: federation, legacy code, and AI workloads

Running Tier-0 infrastructure for a global financial platform means handling heavy traffic volumes with near-zero tolerance for disruption.

Modernizing these surfaces requires untangling legacy systems — some of which, as Ranjeet says, have been around longer than parts of their modern tech stack.

Technical challenges the team is actively tackling, today:

• Router performance & schema federation: Scaling high-throughput router architecture and pipelines to support distributed schema contributions across global teams.

• Safe migration of Tier-0 Traffic: Automating the convergence and migration of mission-critical legacy traffic into the new unified platform, while carefully accounting for the edge cases that come with long-running systems.

• Building for AI as a first-class consumer: Building secure access for AI agents and AI workloads, with businesses and their advisors always in control of what’s shared.

“We constantly balance modernizing older API surfaces with keeping production completely solid. Moving fast on AI features requires smart decisions around governance, observability, and long-term stability so we don't end up creating unexpected technical debt.”

Innovation through developer enablement: "zero-click" tooling

Curiosity and rapid experimentation are central to how Ranjeet’s engineers work. Rather than forcing product developers to become experts in underlying infrastructure details, the team focuses on platform abstractions that make complex setups effortless.

Automated subgraph generation

Through technical spikes and prototyping, the team pioneered single-click (or “zero-click”) automated subgraph tooling. This abstraction allows product engineers to plug into the Supergraph quickly and concentrate 100% of their energy on shipping business logic.

Self-Serve AI Assistants

The team has built AI assistants designed to guide internal squads through end-to-end service setup, while baking in OpenTelemetry standards, shared security guardrails, and automated verification out of the box.

Looking ahead 12 to 24 months, Ranjeet is focused on expanding this federated contribution model across all of Xero, enabling teams anywhere in the world to self-serve cleanly and safely.

Culture in Vancouver: high trust, low ego, and real backing

As Xero’s Vancouver team grows, Ranjeet is deliberate about the culture it’s built on: mutual support, clear direction, and real autonomy.

Why engineers thrive on the Supergraph and API infrastructure team:

1. “I’ve got your back” mentality: A collaborative, low-ego environment where psychological safety comes first and people genuinely support one another.

2. True architectural voice: Through architecture reviews and weekly open tech sessions, everyone — from junior developers to Principal Engineers — has a real platform to shape strategy and challenge how things have always been done.

3. Pragmatic leadership: Mentorship is focused on practical problem-solving, building clarity, and helping engineers take on career-defining stretch projects.

Why join Xero in Vancouver right now?

Joining an established global brand while building out a relatively new tech hub offers the best of both worlds: big-tech scale with an agile, startup-like founding energy.

“You might already be solving interesting technical problems where you are, but here in Xero Vancouver, you get to combine high-scale platform engineering with shaping the culture while it’s still early alongside a supportive, talented group of peers. Plus, you get a say in picking the office coffee and snacks before someone else decides for you!"