# Engineering Manager - Multiple Roles (NZ)
**Company:** [Xero](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/xero)
As an Engineering Manager at Xero, you will lead high-performing engineering teams (6-9 people) owning critical platform and product roadmaps end-to-end, from strategic direction to system architecture. You'll serve as a technical voice championing AI-native workflows, modernizing legacy systems, and partnering with Product and Design to drive delivery excellence across payments, inventory, or small business experience domains that impact millions of customers globally. This role requires proven expertise in software architecture, agile roadmap delivery, team leadership through coaching and mentorship, and the ability to make strategic prioritization decisions while maintaining high-availability systems at scale.
**Role:** Engineering Manager
**Seniority:** Manager
**Locations:** NZ: Auckland: Xero 4 (96 St Georges Bay Rd, Level 2 & 3)
**Salary:** 140000–180000 NZD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/xero/ee4d73e2-164f-49eb-80fc-275be745c9a5)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/xero/engineering-manager-multiple-roles-nz
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## Responsibilities

- End-to-End Roadmap Ownership and Delivery: Own the complete software roadmap and strategic direction for your engineering team, making prioritization decisions aligned with business outcomes. Lead agile delivery processes including sprint planning, dependency management, and cross-functional coordination with Product and Design to ensure high-quality software release cycles. Drive accountability for team velocity, delivery timelines, and technical milestone achievement while maintaining flexibility to redirect focus when outcomes aren't meeting business objectives.
- Technical Leadership and Architecture Guidance: Serve as a genuine technical voice within strategic discussions, leading system design sessions and navigating architectural trade-offs. Guide teams through significant modernization efforts of legacy systems, contribute to build-vs-buy evaluation decisions, and shape the team's technical foundations. Champion best practices in system architecture, platform design, and code quality while maintaining deep enough technical context to make informed strategic decisions about technology choices and infrastructure investments.
- AI-Native Practices Adoption and Innovation: Champion AI-native engineering practices including AI-assisted code review processes, AI-enabled code generation tools, intelligent tooling automation, and agentic workflows. Transform experimentation with emerging AI tools into durable, scalable practices that enhance team productivity and code quality. Mentor engineers on effectively leveraging AI tools while maintaining engineering rigor, and guide the team in balancing AI assistance with critical thinking and architecture ownership.
- High-Performing Team Leadership and Mentorship: Build and lead inclusive, high-performing teams of 6-9 engineers through coaching, mentoring, and advocacy for career progression. Foster psychological safety and transparent communication where team members feel empowered to take ownership. Provide regular feedback, identify skill gaps, and create personalized development plans that challenge engineers to grow while delivering business impact. Celebrate wins and create a collaborative culture where knowledge sharing and continuous learning are embedded.
- Cross-Functional Partnership and Influence: Build strong relationships with Product and Design leaders as an equal strategic partner, not just an executor. Contribute technical perspectives early in product thinking to influence shared strategy and help teams understand technical implications of product decisions. Resolve dependencies proactively across teams, manage complex technical constraints in product planning, and shape domain strategy through collaborative decision-making that balances customer needs, technical sustainability, and business priorities.
- High-Availability Systems Stewardship: Oversee critical systems serving millions of customers worldwide, ensuring reliability, performance, and security meet enterprise standards. Manage incident response processes, establish SLO/SLA frameworks, and drive continuous improvement in system observability and resilience. Lead post-incident reviews to extract learnings and prevent recurrence, while balancing operational excellence with feature delivery velocity.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science or Software Engineering Foundation","description":"Degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating strong foundational software engineering knowledge. Understanding of core computer science concepts, algorithms, and software design principles."}

### technical

- {"name":"Software Architecture and System Design","description":"Demonstrated expertise in designing scalable, maintainable system architectures for cloud-based platforms. Deep understanding of architectural patterns, trade-offs between monolithic vs microservices approaches, database design considerations, and performance optimization techniques. Ability to lead technical discussions evaluating complexity, scalability, and maintainability implications of architectural decisions."}
- {"name":"Agile and Roadmap Delivery","description":"Proven track record delivering software roadmaps end-to-end in agile environments, managing sprint cycles, handling complex inter-team dependencies, and making strategic prioritization decisions. Experience with agile ceremonies (sprint planning, retrospectives, backlog refinement) and roadmap tools. Competency in translating business objectives into technical priorities and tracking delivery metrics."}
- {"name":"Legacy System Modernization","description":"Experience leading teams through significant modernization efforts of legacy systems while maintaining production stability and customer experience. Understanding of technical debt assessment, incremental refactoring strategies, and managing risk during system transitions. Ability to balance short-term delivery with long-term technical foundation improvements."}
- {"name":"High-Availability Systems Operations","description":"Understanding of distributed systems principles, reliability engineering, incident management, and operational excellence practices. Experience with monitoring, observability, SLO/SLA definition, and managing critical systems serving large customer bases. Knowledge of resilience patterns and disaster recovery considerations."}

### experience

- {"name":"Engineering Team Leadership","description":"Minimum 3-5 years of experience leading engineering teams of 5+ people through full software development cycles. Proven ability to grow team capability, mentor engineers for career progression, and maintain high performance while fostering inclusive team culture. Experience building psychological safety and transparent communication practices."}
- {"name":"Product Strategy Collaboration","description":"Track record of partnering effectively with Product and Design teams to shape product strategy, balancing technical constraints with customer needs and business priorities. Experience influencing product decisions through technical insights and collaborating on complex trade-off decisions."}
- {"name":"B2B SaaS or Cloud Platform Experience","description":"Background working in B2B SaaS or cloud platform environments, preferably serving thousands to millions of customers. Understanding of SaaS operational models, subscription economics, and platform scalability challenges. Experience with customer-facing products and the implications of system decisions on user experience."}
- {"name":"Emerging Technology Adoption","description":"Experience exploring and adopting emerging technologies that meaningfully impact team productivity or product capabilities. Comfort with experimentation, evaluation of new tools and practices, and translating successful experiments into scalable approaches across teams."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Technical Leadership","description":"Ability to lead through technical depth while scaling organizational impact. Comfortable making architectural decisions, leading design discussions, and mentoring others in technical excellence without being solely hands-on coding."}
- {"name":"Strategic Thinking and Roadmap Prioritization","description":"Capability to translate business strategy into technical roadmaps, make complex prioritization decisions under constraints, and align team execution with organizational objectives. Comfort with ambiguity and evolving priorities."}
- {"name":"Team Coaching and Development","description":"Genuine passion for growing engineers, providing constructive feedback, and creating career progression pathways. Ability to identify potential, delegate effectively, and create learning opportunities within projects."}
- {"name":"Cross-Functional Communication","description":"Strong ability to communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, influence decision-making through clear reasoning, and build trust across Product, Design, and other departments. Comfort with transparency and collaborative problem-solving."}
- {"name":"Decentralized Decision-Making","description":"Bias toward empowering team members to make decisions, establishing decision frameworks, and avoiding bottlenecks. Comfort moving quickly and iterating rather than seeking perfect information before decisions."}
- {"name":"AI-Native Engineering Practices","description":"Familiarity with AI-assisted development tools (code generation, AI-powered code review, intelligent testing tools) and ability to lead adoption of AI practices that enhance team productivity while maintaining code quality and engineering rigor."}

### preferred

- {"name":"FinTech or Payments Platform Experience","description":"Background in payments systems, financial technology, or regulated financial software. Understanding of compliance requirements, payment processing complexity, PCI-DSS standards, and the high-stakes nature of payment systems operations."}
- {"name":"Inventory or Supply Chain Systems","description":"Experience with inventory management systems, supply chain logistics, or retail technology platforms. Understanding of product-based business operations and the unique challenges of stock tracking and fulfillment systems."}
- {"name":"Developer Experience and Tooling","description":"Experience improving developer experience through platform engineering, internal tooling, or infrastructure optimization. Passion for removing friction in the development workflow and amplifying team velocity through tooling investments."}
- {"name":"Remote Team Leadership","description":"Successfully leading distributed engineering teams across multiple locations with experience building cohesion and maintaining communication effectiveness in hybrid/remote environments."}
- {"name":"Startup or Scale-up Growth","description":"Experience scaling engineering organizations during periods of rapid growth, establishing processes and practices that maintain quality while accelerating velocity."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration for managing scalable cloud-native platform deployments"}
- {"name":"CI/CD Pipelines","description":"GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins for automated testing, building, and deployment"}
- {"name":"Monitoring and Observability","description":"Datadog, New Relic, or similar tools for system health, performance metrics, and incident response"}
- {"name":"Git","description":"Version control and collaborative development workflows"}
- {"name":"AI Development Tools","description":"GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, or similar AI-assisted coding and review tools for modernizing development practices"}

### others

- {"name":"Cloud Platforms","description":"AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or Azure for hosting scalable SaaS applications"}
- {"name":"Microservices Architecture","description":"Designing and maintaining distributed systems with service mesh, API gateways, and inter-service communication patterns"}
- {"name":"Agile Methodologies","description":"Scrum, Kanban, or hybrid approaches for iterative software delivery"}
- {"name":"Payment Processing","description":"Understanding of payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal), transaction processing, and financial compliance for teams owning payments products"}

### databases

- {"name":"PostgreSQL","description":"Relational database for transactional consistency in financial and inventory systems"}
- {"name":"Cloud Data Warehouses","description":"BigQuery, Snowflake, or similar for analytics and reporting in large-scale platforms"}
- {"name":"Redis","description":"In-memory caching and data structures for performance optimization"}

### languages

- {"name":"Java","description":"JVM ecosystem languages for backend microservices and platform development in financial systems"}
- {"name":"JavaScript/TypeScript","description":"Modern web development and full-stack capabilities for SaaS platforms"}
- {"name":"Python","description":"Data processing, automation, tooling, and emerging AI integration workflows"}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Spring Boot","description":"Enterprise Java framework for building scalable microservices and REST APIs"}
- {"name":"React","description":"Modern UI framework for building responsive customer-facing web applications"}
- {"name":"Node.js","description":"JavaScript runtime for building server-side applications and APIs"}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Hybrid Work Flexibility","description":"Balance local team presence with global scope through a flexible hybrid model. Work from modern office spaces during designated boost days in Auckland or Wellington while maintaining flexibility for remote work. Limited remote work options available for select team members based in New Zealand locations."}
- {"name":"Career Growth and Development","description":"Clear pathway for career progression within a rapidly scaling engineering organization. Access to mentorship from experienced technical leaders, opportunities to lead high-impact projects, and investment in continuous learning and skill development through training programs and professional development budgets."}
- {"name":"Impact and Scale","description":"Lead teams whose work directly impacts millions of customers globally. Own critical platform systems (Payments, Inventory, Small Business Experience) that are core to Xero's product strategy. See the tangible outcomes of your technical decisions reflected in customer success and business growth."}
- {"name":"Technical Excellence Culture","description":"Work within an organization that values architectural rigor, system design best practices, and code quality. Collaborate with experienced engineers on high-stakes systems while maintaining a relaxed, collaborative team culture that balances delivery velocity with sustainable technical foundations."}
- {"name":"Innovation and AI Leadership","description":"Pioneer AI-native engineering practices within your team and across the organization. Opportunity to shape how Xero adopts AI-assisted development tools and agentic workflows, positioning your team at the forefront of engineering productivity innovation."}
- {"name":"Inclusive Leadership Environment","description":"Lead within a culture that prioritizes diverse perspectives, psychological safety, and transparent decision-making. Support for inclusive hiring practices and commitment to building teams where all engineers feel valued and empowered to contribute."}

## Compensation

- **max:** 180000
- **min:** 140000
- **currency:** NZD
- **stockOptions:** true

## Interview process

### steps

- {"name":"Initial Screening Call","description":"30-minute conversation with Xero's Talent team to discuss your background, motivation for the role, and initial fit assessment. This is your opportunity to learn more about the specific team opportunities (Payments, Inventory, or Small Business Experience) and clarify any questions about the role structure."}
- {"name":"Technical Leadership Discussion","description":"45-minute conversation with the Engineering Director or senior technical leader covering your experience with software architecture decisions, team leadership philosophy, and approach to technical strategy. Be prepared to discuss specific examples of roadmap delivery, modernization projects, and how you've led teams through complex technical challenges."}
- {"name":"Product and Design Collaboration Interview","description":"30-minute conversation with Product and Design leaders to assess your ability to partner effectively across functions. Discussion will focus on how you balance technical constraints with product needs, examples of influencing product strategy through technical insights, and your approach to cross-functional decision-making."}
- {"name":"Team Leadership and Culture Assessment","description":"45-minute conversation with the Engineering Manager's peer or direct report focused on your team development philosophy, coaching approach, and how you build inclusive team culture. Prepare examples of mentoring engineers, handling team conflicts, and creating psychological safety for decentralized decision-making."}
- {"name":"Executive Alignment Conversation","description":"30-minute final conversation with VP Engineering or similar executive level to discuss strategic fit with Xero's organizational priorities, your vision for the specific team domain (Payments, Inventory, or Small Business Experience), and long-term career alignment with the company's growth trajectory."}

## Full description
**The role & impact** 
As an Engineering Manager, you will own the roadmap and strategy for your team end-to-end, setting direction, making prioritisation calls, and driving the delivery of high-quality software through high-performing, inclusive teams.

You won't just manage the work; you will be a genuine technical voice in the room, leading system design discussions, navigating architectural trade-offs, and shaping how the team evolves its technical foundations. Your impact spans both delivery velocity and technical excellence. You will actively contribute to critical engineering decisions, from system architecture and platform design to build-vs-buy trade-offs, while championing AI-native workflows and guiding your team to hone their craft in ways that deliver meaningful business and customer outcomes.

**The team**

You will lead a coordinated platform or product-focused team where building trust through transparency and seeking diverse perspectives are core to how we work. As an equal partner with Product and Design, you will co-own the strategic direction of your domain — resolving dependencies early, influencing product thinking with technical insight, and creating a sustainable environment where engineers can do their best work.

We’re currently recruiting for three teams in NZ - Payments, Small Business Experience and Inventory.

**The team is currently working on / Initially, you will focus on:**

**Payments**

You'll be leading a high-performing 6-7 person engineering team based in Auckland that manages some of Xero's most critical products. Your team serves approximately **70% of Xero's global subscriber base**, which means the systems you oversee directly impact millions of customers worldwide. This is a role for someone who thrives in a high-stakes environment and wants to modernize legacy systems while maintaining a relaxed, collaborative team culture.

**Inventory**

You'll lead a distributed 9-person engineering team across Auckland, Wellington, and remote NZ locations. Inventory is on a mission to help small and mid-sized product-based businesses keep their accounting accurate and simple. You'll own a team that's directly responsible for closing critical gaps in functionality and modernizing core systems—with tangible feedback from customers proving the impact of your work.

This is a role for a technical leader with strong operational mindset and a track record of delivering and maintaining high-availability systems.

**Where and how you can work** 
This role can be based in Auckland or Wellington in New Zealand, with some scope for remote NZ location for one of the engineering teams. We offer a hybrid working model that balances local team presence with a global scope of work. You will have the flexibility to work from home while connecting with your colleagues in our modern office spaces during designated boost days.

**Here are some of the things we are looking for**

* You champion AI-native practices in engineering (AI-assisted PR reviews, code generation, tooling, agentic workflows) and turn experimentation into durable practice.
* You bring a proven track record of owning and delivering software roadmaps end-to-end in agile environments, including managing complex dependencies and making strategic prioritisation decisions.
* You have deep experience in software architecture and system design, with the confidence to lead technical trade-off discussions and steer teams through significant modernisation efforts.
* You have a passion for providing high support through coaching, mentoring, and advocating for the career progression of your engineers.
* Your approach to leadership involves making fast, decentralised decisions and empowering your team to take ownership.
* You possess the ability to lead through influence, building strong partnerships across Product and Design; contributing technical perspectives to shape shared strategy, not just align to it.
* A bias for action is part of your DNA, allowing you to proactively redirect focus when work isn't moving the needle on business outcomes.

Apply even if your experience isn't a perfect match! At Xero, we hire based on your skills, passion, and the unique perspective you can bring to enhance our culture and team.