Role overview

As a Principal Engineer in the Engineering Productivity team at Xero, you will partner with the engineering community to create developer-first platform tools that empower thousands of engineers across the organisation to ship software faster and at scale. This role spans multiple teams across Xero’s engineering landscape, allowing you to identify and solve high-impact technical challenges rather than being confined to a single team.

Key responsibilities

Partner with engineering teams across the organisation to design and build platform tools that remove friction from developer workflows and improve productivity.
Tackle complex technical challenges including optimising local development experiences, accelerating pull request reviews, and scaling AI-native development practices.
Work on inner-loop mastery initiatives that enhance coding speed and developer experience through tools like the Xero AI Engineering Toolkit.
Address outer-loop delivery challenges by streamlining environment provisioning and reducing review cycle times.
Mentor and develop other engineers through influence and example, helping teams and individuals grow their capabilities.
Collaborate with product teams, infrastructure teams, and technical leadership to drive meaningful organisational change and consolidate developer tooling.
Communicate complex technical concepts to senior stakeholders and executives, translating platform decisions into compelling narratives that guide organisational direction.

Requirements

Demonstrated expertise in DevEx, DevOps, or Platform Engineering with a proven track record of building products and platforms that engineers value.
A platform-as-a-product mindset with the ability to deeply understand customer pain points (in this case, engineers) and design scalable solutions.
Comfort navigating ambiguous, rapidly changing environments where requirements remain fluid and you can adapt quickly to shifting priorities.
Strong communication and influence skills that allow you to collaborate effectively with senior technical stakeholders and executives across the organisation.
Exposure to or hands-on experience with AI-native development practices, spec-driven development, or modern AI development lifecycles.
Ability to mentor and grow others through influence and example rather than through formal authority.

What makes this role worth considering

This is a distributed role across Australia and New Zealand with a predominantly remote-first team structure, offering flexibility over where and how you work. You’ll participate in 1-2 on-site sessions per quarter, typically in Melbourne or Wellington/Auckland, allowing you to connect with colleagues while maintaining autonomy over your working arrangements. The Engineering Productivity team operates with high trust and psychological safety, valuing diverse perspectives and creating an environment where complex technical problems are solved collaboratively.