Role overview

You will lead the Networks team within Cloud Capabilities at Xero, managing a group of seven engineers responsible for the company’s cloud network infrastructure, DNS services and content delivery network. This team underpins connectivity and content delivery across all Xero products globally, making your decisions directly impact reliability, security and operational costs at scale. You will report to the Head of Engineering for Cloud Capabilities and work closely with Product, Security and other cloud infrastructure teams.

Key responsibilities

Set the strategic direction for the Networks team and align delivery against Cloud Capabilities goals for the year.
Grow and support a team of engineers across different experience levels, including hiring, performance conversations and career development.
Balance roadmap work with support requests and incident management, ensuring fair distribution of on-call responsibilities across the team.
Shape a multi-year network strategy spanning AWS and edge providers, with a mandate to modernise critical infrastructure.
Review incidents using a blameless approach and build trust with your team and cross-functional partners.
Make and document technical decisions, fostering open debate around priorities and trade-offs in network design.

Requirements

Experience guiding engineering teams that operate production infrastructure, including responsibilities for hiring, performance management and career progression.
Strong grounding in cloud networking concepts such as VPCs, routing, DNS, CDN and load balancing.
Demonstrated ability to set direction, deliver against roadmaps and OKRs, and manage both planned and unplanned work simultaneously.
Comfort modernising critical infrastructure thoughtfully, weighing priorities and trade-offs carefully.
Strong stakeholder management skills with clear written communication and the ability to explain technical thinking transparently.
A cloud certification such as AWS Advanced Networking Specialty or formal management training is a bonus.

What makes this role worth considering

This is a permanent position based in Australia or New Zealand, with preference for Melbourne, Sydney, Auckland or Wellington. You will have real ownership of a multi-year modernisation programme for infrastructure that affects every Xero product. The team operates in fortnightly sprints with a collaborative culture that values written decisions and technical debate, supported by periodic in-person Boost days for connection and learning.