Role overview

As an Engineering Manager at Xero, you will lead a high-performing team focused on delivering quality software while fostering technical excellence and team growth. You will serve as the technical anchor for your team, balancing the need for predictable product delivery with long-term system health and operational improvements.

Key responsibilities

Lead and coach a results-driven engineering team in a high-trust environment that emphasises blameless problem-solving and clear ownership of goals.
Guide your team through the adoption of AI-native engineering workflows across the software development lifecycle to boost velocity and reduce repetitive work.
Oversee modernisation efforts focused on improving system architecture and CI/CD maturity to reduce operational risk.
Drive technical decision-making by maintaining hands-on involvement with production code, including writing, reviewing, and debugging.
Collaborate closely with Product and Design partners to shape solutions that address customer needs and align with business objectives.
Build visibility into system health and technical debt, enabling proactive improvements for high-scale, high-availability distributed systems.
Support your team’s growth and capability development through coaching and performance management.

Requirements

Extensive professional software engineering experience with a demonstrated track record of technical maturity and delivering complex systems.
Proven experience leading, coaching, and performance-managing engineers, with success in building and improving team capability.
Ability to translate business goals into executable engineering plans that balance short-term delivery with long-term sustainability.
Hands-on technical credibility demonstrated through experience writing, reviewing, and debugging production code.
Experience building and supporting high-scale, high-availability distributed systems, including leading or overseeing incident response.
Experience leading or supporting teams in adopting AI-native engineering workflows to improve developer productivity and quality.

What makes this role worth considering

Xero is a Great Place to Work UK-certified company that values flexible working arrangements. You can work remotely, hybrid, or office-based, with offices in London, Milton Keynes, and Manchester offering boost days for team connection and collaboration. The company emphasises that your unique perspective and passion matter, encouraging applications even when experience does not perfectly match the posted requirements.