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Xero is seeking an experienced Engineering Manager to lead Database Reliability Engineering teams and drive a critical modernisation agenda at scale. You will oversee two specialised teams working across Australia and New Zealand, managing the infrastructure that powers millions of customer transactions daily.
Your primary focus will be delivering an AI DBA platform to break the reactive firefighting cycle, whilst coaching engineers to shift towards strategic consulting and enabling product teams to own their own databases more effectively. Your decisions will have downstream impact across the entire organisation as you work with experienced engineers on complex infrastructure challenges.
The Database Engineering team owns all databases at Xero, including core infrastructure supporting millions of customers and hundreds of engineers across dozens of product teams. The team is split across two specialist groups: one providing frontline support, incident response, and strategic consulting; the second leading migration to cloud-managed services.
Initial focus areas include:
- Delivering an AI database administrator platform to embed team knowledge into an agentic tool that handles incident response and automates routine support
- Completing global database migrations to RDS (XeroDB migration complete; moving other critical databases in coordination with product teams)
- Modernising database technology from Microsoft SQL Server to Aurora Postgres through ongoing experimentation and partnership with AWS
- Building operational and cultural foundations for teams to shift from reactive incident response to proactive strategic consulting on database architecture and performance
The role can be based in Australia (Melbourne or Sydney) or New Zealand (Auckland or Wellington), reflecting where database engineering teams are distributed. Flexible working arrangements are supported, with expectation of regular collaboration with direct reports and partner teams.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Deep understanding of database architecture and relational database systems, with familiarity across different database technologies (relational, non-relational, cloud-managed services) and genuine interest in learning new approaches
- Track record managing large-scale infrastructure projects or leading engineers through significant technical transformations, with delivery mindset to break down complex work into executable steps
- Proven ability to coach and mentor experienced engineers, identifying strengths and helping them grow, especially when pushing adoption of new technologies or ways of working
- Strong relationships across technical and non-technical teams, comfortable navigating stakeholder complexity and bringing people on the journey when change is needed
- Willingness to embrace modern technology directions and think strategically about team evolution alongside organisational needs
- Postgres experience is preferable, but ability to learn alongside team and facilitate their growth in emerging technologies is what matters most
