The role / impact

As an Engineering Manager, you will lead inclusive, high-performing software engineering teams to predictably deliver our product roadmap while upholding operational excellence. Serving as a technical anchor, you will guide your team in balancing rapid delivery speed with long-term system health, ensuring small businesses around the world receive simple, high-quality software that helps them thrive.

You will foster a sustainable environment where engineers do their best work, integrating AI-native workflows across the software development lifecycle and tackling complex technical challenges. By aligning team outcomes with broader business goals, your leadership directly contributes to building a stronger economy.

The team / how they connect

Our cross-functional teams work in close partnership with Product and Design to solve real customer problems and deliver seamless software experiences. We emphasise decentralized decision-making, clear communication, and high support to remove friction and resolve dependencies early. Together, we cultivate psychological safety, enabling everyone to learn, experiment, and grow.

Initially, you will focus on

• Decoupling legacy monolithic systems into modern, scalable API-first microservices.

• Embedding AI tooling across the entire software development lifecycle, from documentation to automated testing, to drive throughput gains.

• Elevating developer experience by removing technical toil and environment friction to support deep work.

• Managing technical health, operational excellence, and incident response to maintain high service availability.

Where and how you can work

We offer flexible working arrangements that support both home and office collaboration, with dedicated boost days designed for team connection and strategy. This role includes participating in an on-call roster to help ensure 24/7 support for our products, managed in partnership with your leader.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• Strong technical background with software architecture, code quality, and experience guiding teams through system decoupling.

• Demonstrated capability in coaching and mentoring engineers, building an inclusive environment anchored in psychological safety.

• Proven skills in cross-functional collaboration, with a track record of translating business goals into clear engineering execution plans.

• Experience maintaining platform health, managing technical debt, and supporting reliable operational standards.

• A practical mindset for adopting new workflows, including AI engineering practices to drive efficiency across the team.

**This position is not eligible for employment visa sponsorship.

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.

Compensation & Total Rewards

At Xero, we value the impact and skills you bring to the team. We don’t just hire for a role; we invest in people. We believe in a Total Package philosophy - which means your value isn't just a single number on a paycheck. While base salary is a core component, we look at your compensation through a holistic lens that includes equity, performance incentives, and world-class benefits.

The expected base salary range for this role in:

• California: $218K - $273K USD

Individual pay is determined by various factors, including geography, level of experience, and the specific skills you bring to the role.

In addition to base pay, Xero’s roles are eligible for the following forms of variable compensation:

• Variable Pay: Permanent employees are eligible to participate in our annual bonus and equity (RSU) programs. You may also be eligible for performance-based cash or equity (RSUs) incentives depending on your role level, and company performance.

• Comprehensive Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match, and 21 days PTO, 10 days of Wellbeing leave, 5 days of Xtra Leave, 1 volunteer day, 12 paid holidays, paid parental leave. Further information included on our Xero Perks page.

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 human recruiter reviews all candidates before any hiring action is taken.