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Lead Engineer - Making Payments

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The Role

The role

As a Lead Engineer in Making Payments, part of Xero’s Payments Platform, you will own the technical lifecycle of bill payments: the way small businesses pay their bills and their people through Xero. When payouts land smoothly, a business’s cash flow stays healthy, so your work has a real and visible effect on the customers we serve. You will set the technical direction, turn it into a clear, sequenced plan, then guide the team as they deliver it and look after the health of our systems once they are live. You’ll get deep exposure to payments at scale and room to shape architecture, delivery and team capability.

The team & how they connect

You’ll join Making Payments within Xero’s Payments Platform, helping build and scale the bill-payments experience for small businesses across regions. You’ll work closely with Product and Design, and collaborate with engineering, Security, Risk and Operations partners across Xero across timezones.

The technical environment and the impact

  • Our stack: .NET (C#), AWS, Postgres and DynamoDB, with an API-first, mostly backend focus and tier 1 services that need high availability and test coverage above 90%.

  • Hard problems, high scale: Global rails, orchestration, compliance, fraud design and more.

  • Early stage, real ownership: Define foundational systems that future revenue and product lines will depend on.

  • Massive impact: Shape a global payments platform critical to Xero’s revenue and customer growth.

What you’ll do

  • Define and build core platform services: Lead the design and development of reliable, scalable, secure services, and shape the technical foundation for Xero’s money movement capabilities.

  • Stay hands-on: Contribute directly to production code, proofs of concept and technical deep dives.

  • Drive technical excellence: Set a high bar for reliability, security and scale through design reviews and best practices.

  • Ensure operational excellence: Lead on-call practices, build robust observability and champion high-performance, reliable systems.

  • Collaborate cross-functionally: Translate complex business needs into resilient engineering solutions.

  • Mentor and grow engineers: Act as a role model and coach, fostering a culture of inclusion, collaboration and excellence.

  • Drive innovation with AI: Champion AI tools and practices across the team, from accelerating development workflows to strengthening the platform.

What we’re looking for

  • Experience: Hands-on experience in a senior technical role such as Staff Engineer or Tech Lead, delivering highly available, distributed backend systems at scale, ideally in payments, fintech or another regulated space.

  • Architecture and API design: Depth in secure, high-throughput services, including knowing when a synchronous API fits and when an asynchronous, event-based design serves customers better.

  • Technical foundations: Proficiency in at least one modern backend language (C# is a bonus, but Java, Go or C++ work too), cloud-native experience (ideally AWS), and both SQL and NoSQL databases.

  • You Go Fast by breaking complex problems into clear, actionable plans and following through.

  • You Go Together by building trusted relationships across engineering, product, risk and operations.

  • You Go Bold with AI by using AI tools hands-on in your own engineering work.

Where and how you can work

You’ll be based in Sydney or Melbourne, working a hybrid model that blends time together in our modern offices with the flexibility of working from home. Boost days bring teams together in person on Wednesdays and Thursdays. You’ll be part of a globally distributed team across Australia and the US.

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.

Xero uses AI to help screen applications based on job-related qualifications. These tools assist our recruiters but do not make automated hiring decisions. A real human recruiter reviews all candidates before any hiring action is taken.

Lead Engineer - Making Payments

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Melbourne

Xero’s head office in Australia is in the buzzing suburb of Hawthorn, a stone’s throw from the CBD. Here, a diverse mix of Xeros work in both global and regional teams.

Brisbane

Our beautiful sunlit office is close to Brisbane Central Train Station and walking distance from Queen Street Mall as well as King George Square.

Sydney

Our office is in the heart of the Sydney CBD with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We're just over by Wynyard Park so it's easy to get to.

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Toronto

Our Canadian office is located in the heart of Toronto and has the city’s financial district at its doorstep.

Calgary

Vancouver

Vancouver, B.C.
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New Zealand

Aotearoa New Zealand is our birthplace and where our work is anchored in three foundational themes reflecting both our heritage and our global ambition: Pioneering Innovation, Kiwi Roots, Globally Driven, and Community at our Core.

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Wellington (HQ - Xero One)

Our home base. We’ve got a world-class office space with almost every part of the business having a team here.

Auckland

Our Auckland employees are based in a bright, modern building in Parnell. Te Ara Turoa means ‘the journey of enduring light’, which refers to the history and significance of the land where the building stands.

Napier, Hawke's Bay

A converted old wool-store is where you'll find our Hawke’s Bay office. It’s a sunny base for our customer support crew and other teams.

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Singapore

Located in the heart of Singapore, our office is the headquarters for the South East Asia region.

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South Africa

Our Cape Town office is Xero's base in South Africa, and Johannesburg is home to the Syft team. In South Africa, we have a history of being first to market with ground-breaking features that solve real problems for accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses. We're proud to have built a thriving community in South Africa for 10+ years.

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Cape Town

Our South African office is located in Cape Town. It's a brand new office space just a stone’s throw from a collection of coffee shops, restaurants, and shops.

Johannesburg

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Milton Keynes (HQ + Experience Center)

This vibrant office is our welcoming UK headquarters. It’s close to the train station as well as cycling and walking paths.

London

The office is a 2 minute walk from the station - Exit Liverpool Street Station from the Bishopsgate exit, cross at the traffic lights and turn left onto New Street and follow the road.

Manchester

At the center of Manchester’s thriving tech hub and business district, this UK office is surrounded by creativity and innovation.

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Denver

Headquarters for the Americas, the sleek and modern Denver office is in the heart of the Platte Street area and right near the scenic Platte River.

New York

Xero’s (and Melio's) office is conveniently located in midtown Manhattan.

San Mateo

Our Bay Area office located in San Mateo features collaborative and transformative spaces perfect for team gatherings.

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Welcome to life inside Xero — where we're building the future of small business around the world.

No matter where you join us from, you’ll find a team that balances global impact and high performance with genuine flexibility, ensuring you have the space to be your best and supercharge your career.

Step into our world

How we hire

We know interviews can be a bit nerve-wracking. So we've laid out what to expect, how to prepare, and what to expect through the process. 

Connect with our talent team

You’ll connect with our talent team for the initial screen via Google Meet. This call will go over your background, experience, and career goals, as well as what to expect in the process and any questions you may have. We’re focused on finding folks who not only have the right skills, but also align with our values and dynamic way of working.

Show us your skills

In this interview(s) we want to learn more about your job skills and domain expertise. Anticipate a case study, a tech exercise, a portfolio review, and/or time with your team to dive into role related activities. Don't worry, no matter the role we'll make sure you're prepared to put your best foot forward!

Values in action

We want to hear how you demonstrate and connect with our values and the future of work at Xero. Be prepared to share examples of how you drive results and work cross-functionally and focus on the “customer”. You’ll be meeting with your potential new team so it’s a great opportunity to ask any questions you may have, too. Go Bold. Go Fast. Go Further. Go Together.

LEADership Interview (people leaders only)

For people leaders, our interviews focus on our four LEAD principles: 1) Lead with vision 2) Elevate capability 3) Act like an owner 4) Distill and solve problems

Decision and offer

Once you've connected with the team and manager, and everyone (including you!) agree we've found the best fit, we'll move to offer.

Supporting Xeros to thrive

From flexible working and wellbeing support to professional growth and meaningful perks, we help you do your best work, and feel great doing it.

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Leave

Annual leave: 20+ days a year

Wellbeing leave: 10+ days a year, pro-rated based on start date

Xtra leave: Five days a year to use whenever and however

Parental leave: 26 weeks paid leave with top-ups, up to 100%, Partner leave: 6 weeks paid leave in baby’s first year

Holiday leave: Three extra days over year-end shutdown (it's on the house!)

Lifestyle leave: Purchase additional time off, spread the cost over the year

Community Connect: One paid day per year for volunteering

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Wellbeing

Flexible working is not just a nice to have at Xero, itʼs the way we do things.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAP): Access free, confidential support for you and your family as part of our wellbeing program.

Modern Health: A free benefit, and our global EAP, for Xero employees and immediate family members to support and promote the wellbeing of Xeros and their families as part of our global wellbeing strategy. This service includes six coaching and six counselling sessions plus access to unique work life services that are available globally.

Mentorloop: Every Xero has access to Mentorloop, our platform for finding a mentor.

Local wellbeing programs: New wellbeing programs and activities are offered regularly in each region.

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Rewards

Employee Share Plan (ESP): Own a small portion of Xero through the employee share plan (ESP). Each year, every Xero receives a percentage of their base salary in Xero shares. The number of shares varies yearly based on salary and share price. Shares are typically offered in July and, for new employees, they’re pro-rated depending on start date.

Medical insurance: Xeros in all regions can expect exceptional medical insurance coverage provided by Xero. Many regions even have a fully subsidised option for eligible Xeros.

Retirement: Competitive retirement plan options with a matching contribution from Xero.

Life insurance: Life insurance coverage is provided to Xeros with a minimum coverage amount equivalent to their base annual salary.

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Xero

Xero subscription: Use our beautiful easy-to-use accounting software for your side gig or personal finances.

Xero rewards: Gain access to an array of retail discounts including stores, restaurants, holidays and products.

Global impact: Work for a company that’s in 9 countries and has 23 offices.

Environmentally conscious: Xero is certified carbon neutral and committed to supporting our customers, partners and their communities to become more sustainable.

Not ready to join us just yet?

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