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Salary: USD 206,000 - 260,000 / annual
Xero is seeking a Lead Engineer to shape the technical foundation for money movement capabilities and unlock new product lines globally. You will guide the design and development of reliable, scalable, performant, and secure services for the payments platform, ensuring operational excellence and direct business outcomes.
This is an early-stage initiative where you will make foundational architectural decisions with visible impact on the future of small business financial management. You will contribute directly to production code and proof-of-concepts, solving complex fintech challenges at scale.
The Payments Platform team is the engine powering money movement across Xero's ecosystem. You will collaborate closely with product, security, risk, and operations teams in a highly collaborative environment that values technical excellence, inclusion, and continuous innovation.
Initially, you will focus on:
- Designing and building payment platform capabilities including orchestration, risk & fraud management, multi-provider support, and operational improvements
- Building a global bill payment product to streamline cash flow management for small businesses
- Developing core high-throughput platform services
- Integrating and championing AI capabilities to accelerate engineering productivity and developer workflows
This position is remote for applicants based in Washington State. The role requires close cross-functional collaboration with teams in Australia and New Zealand, so working within the Pacific time zone helps align schedules for essential meetings. You will have flexibility to balance remote work with in-person connection during team alignment days and local hub events.
QUALIFICATIONS & REQUIREMENTS:
- Proven track record delivering highly available, distributed backend systems and designing high-throughput services under real-world constraints
- Deep understanding of system architecture, API design, and both SQL and NoSQL databases
- Proficiency in modern backend stacks: C#, Java, Golang, or C++
- Experience with cloud-native platforms, particularly AWS
- Passion for staying hands-on, contributing directly to production code, proof-of-concepts, and technical deep dives
- Strong leadership capabilities with ability to set technical direction, mentor engineers, and foster inclusive culture
- Strong problem-solving skills: breaking down complex problems into clear, actionable solutions and driving agile execution
- Ability to partner effectively with Product, Design, and cross-functional teams to translate business needs into resilient engineering solutions
- Champion of advanced AI tool usage and practices to accelerate development workflows
Note: Xero is tech stack agnostic and encourages applications from candidates with adjacent technology experience.
