# Lead Engineer - Payments Platform **Company:** [Xero](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/xero) Lead Engineer - Payments Platform at Xero is a senior technical leadership role focused on architecting and building scalable, reliable payment systems that power money movement globally. You'll shape foundational decisions for the payments platform, lead cross-functional teams in delivering high-throughput financial services, and drive technical innovation while staying hands-on with production code and proof-of-concepts. This early-stage initiative offers the rare opportunity to build world-class payment infrastructure for millions of small business users while mentoring engineers and influencing engineering culture. **Role:** Lead Engineer **Seniority:** Lead **Locations:** US: Washington Remote Worker **Remote:** yes **Salary:** 206000–260000 USD [Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/xero/0f602c80-9375-4429-a424-2cdce4ef4bc6) Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/xero/lead-engineer-payments-platform-0f602c80 --- ## Responsibilities - Payments Platform Architecture and Design: Lead the design and development of reliable, scalable, performant, and secure payment services including payment orchestration, risk and fraud detection systems, and multi-provider payment processing to accelerate product development. - High-Throughput Services Development: Architect and develop core high-throughput platform services that handle millions of transactions, ensuring operational excellence, system reliability, and direct business outcomes for global payment operations. - Global Bill Payment Product Development: Drive the development of a global bill payment product that streamlines cash flow management for small businesses, translating complex business requirements into resilient technical solutions at scale. - AI Integration and Developer Productivity: Champion the integration and adoption of advanced AI capabilities across the engineering organization to accelerate development workflows, enhance developer productivity, and establish best practices for AI-assisted engineering. - Technical Leadership and Mentoring: Set technical direction for the Payments Platform team, mentor engineers in distributed systems design, code review, and technical decision-making while fostering an inclusive engineering culture. - Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with product, design, security, risk, and operations teams to translate complex business needs into scalable engineering solutions while driving agile execution and delivery of payment platform capabilities. - Production Code and Proof-of-Concepts: Maintain hands-on involvement by directly contributing to production code, technical deep dives, and proof-of-concepts to solve complex financial technology challenges at massive scale. - System Architecture and API Design Leadership: Lead the design of robust system architecture and API interfaces that support payment orchestration, multi-provider integration, and fraud risk management while maintaining high availability and performance standards. ## Requirements ### education - {"name":"Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science or Related Field","description":"Formal computer science education or equivalent demonstrated experience in software engineering, systems design, and distributed architecture principles."} ### technical - {"name":"Backend Programming Languages","description":"Proficiency in modern backend programming languages such as C#, Java, Golang, or C++. Experience with multiple languages or adjacent technologies is valued; the team is tech stack agnostic."} - {"name":"Distributed Systems and Backend Architecture","description":"Proven track record designing and delivering highly available, distributed backend systems with deep understanding of system architecture, API design patterns, and microservices principles."} - {"name":"High-Throughput Services Development","description":"Experience designing and building high-throughput, low-latency services that operate under real-world constraints, including performance optimization, scalability, and reliability considerations."} - {"name":"Database Design and Management","description":"Deep understanding of both SQL and NoSQL database technologies, including schema design, query optimization, data consistency models, and database scaling strategies."} - {"name":"Cloud-Native Platform Expertise","description":"Hands-on experience with cloud-native platforms, particularly AWS, including infrastructure-as-code, containerization, orchestration, monitoring, and cloud-native application design."} - {"name":"Financial Technology and Payment Systems","description":"Experience with financial technology systems, payment processing, transaction orchestration, fraud detection, or risk management systems is highly valuable for this payments platform role."} - {"name":"AI Tools and Practices","description":"Advanced usage and advocacy for AI tools and practices to accelerate engineering productivity, including code generation, development workflows, and technical decision support."} ### experience - {"name":"Senior Backend Engineering Experience","description":"Proven track record of delivering complex backend systems and services at scale, demonstrating expertise in system design, performance optimization, and operational excellence."} - {"name":"Technical Leadership and Mentoring","description":"Experience setting technical direction, making architectural decisions, and mentoring engineers within high-performance teams, fostering technical excellence and inclusive engineering culture."} - {"name":"Cross-Functional Collaboration","description":"Strong experience partnering with product, design, and operations teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions, demonstrating business acumen and communication skills."} - {"name":"Production System Ownership","description":"Direct experience owning and operating production systems at scale, with accountability for reliability, performance, security, and business outcomes of platform services."} ## Skills ### required - {"name":"Distributed Systems Design","description":"Expert-level understanding of distributed computing principles, consensus algorithms, eventual consistency, fault tolerance, and system reliability patterns essential for payment platform architecture."} - {"name":"System Architecture and Scalability","description":"Ability to design highly scalable, performant systems architecture that can handle massive transaction volumes while maintaining reliability, security, and operational simplicity."} - {"name":"Backend Development","description":"Expert-level proficiency in at least one modern backend programming language (C#, Java, Golang, C++) with deep understanding of language ecosystems, frameworks, and performance characteristics."} - {"name":"API Design and Specification","description":"Strong expertise in designing clean, versioned, maintainable APIs including RESTful principles, async patterns, and integration standards for payment platform orchestration."} - {"name":"Database Technologies","description":"Expert knowledge of SQL databases (transaction semantics, query optimization) and NoSQL solutions (consistency models, horizontal scaling) for financial transaction data management."} - {"name":"Cloud Infrastructure and AWS","description":"Deep proficiency with AWS cloud services including compute, storage, networking, databases, and monitoring tools necessary for building cloud-native payment platform services."} - {"name":"Technical Leadership","description":"Demonstrated ability to lead technical teams, make sound architectural decisions under constraints, mentor engineers, and drive technical culture and excellence."} - {"name":"Problem Decomposition and Execution","description":"Strong capability to break down complex financial technology challenges into clear, actionable technical solutions and drive agile execution to deliver measurable results."} ### preferred - {"name":"Financial Technology and Payments Experience","description":"Background in fintech, payment processing, transaction orchestration, fraud risk management, or compliance systems provides valuable domain knowledge for payment platform work."} - {"name":"Multi-Provider Payment Integration","description":"Experience integrating multiple payment providers, gateways, or networks and managing provider diversity, failover, and settlement reconciliation."} - {"name":"High-Frequency Transaction Processing","description":"Experience designing systems that handle millions of daily transactions with sub-second latencies, ensuring data consistency and operational reliability at scale."} - {"name":"AI and Machine Learning Advocacy","description":"Demonstrated enthusiasm for adopting advanced AI tools and practices to enhance engineering productivity, code quality, and team efficiency."} - {"name":"Open Source Contributions","description":"Active involvement in open source projects related to backend systems, distributed technologies, or cloud infrastructure demonstrates community engagement and technical depth."} - {"name":"Secure Software Development","description":"Knowledge of secure coding practices, threat modeling, and security architecture relevant to handling sensitive financial data and payment transactions."} ## Tech stack ### tools - {"name":"AWS","description":"Cloud platform for infrastructure, compute, storage, databases, monitoring, and deployment of payment services."} - {"name":"Kubernetes","description":"Container orchestration platform for managing and scaling microservices in cloud-native payment systems."} - {"name":"Docker","description":"Containerization technology for consistent deployment of payment platform services across environments."} - {"name":"Git and Version Control","description":"Essential tools for collaborative development, code review, and version management of platform codebase."} - {"name":"CI/CD Pipelines","description":"Automated testing, build, and deployment systems ensuring reliable, frequent releases of payment platform updates."} ### others - {"name":"Observability and Monitoring","description":"Tools and practices for distributed tracing, logging, metrics, and alerting essential for production payment system reliability."} - {"name":"API Gateway and Service Mesh","description":"Technologies for managing inter-service communication, traffic routing, and security in payment platform microservices."} - {"name":"Event-Driven Architectures","description":"Asynchronous communication patterns using message queues and event streams for scalable payment transaction processing."} - {"name":"AI Development and Prompt Engineering","description":"Tools and practices for leveraging AI models to accelerate development workflows and enhance engineering productivity."} ### databases - {"name":"PostgreSQL / MySQL","description":"Relational databases for transactional consistency in financial operations and payment records."} - {"name":"NoSQL Solutions (DynamoDB, etc.)","description":"Scalable key-value and document stores for high-throughput data access patterns and eventual consistency scenarios."} ### languages - {"name":"C#","description":"Modern backend language with strong ecosystem for cloud applications; valued for payment systems development."} - {"name":"Java","description":"Enterprise-grade programming language with mature frameworks; widely used in financial services for reliability and performance."} - {"name":"Golang","description":"Cloud-native language designed for distributed systems, microservices, and high-throughput services."} - {"name":"C++","description":"High-performance language for low-latency systems and performance-critical payment processing components."} ### frameworks - {"name":"Spring (Java) or ASP.NET Core (C#)","description":"Enterprise backend frameworks for building scalable, maintainable payment platform services and APIs."} - {"name":"Microservices Architecture","description":"Distributed service architecture for building loosely coupled, independently deployable payment system components."} ## Benefits ### benefits - {"name":"Equity and RSUs","description":"Eligible for equity (RSU) programs with potential for performance-based equity incentives depending on role level and company performance."} - {"name":"Annual Bonus and Variable Pay","description":"Participate in annual bonus programs and performance-based cash or equity (RSUs) incentives tied to role level and company performance."} - {"name":"Medical, Dental, and Vision Coverage","description":"Comprehensive healthcare coverage including medical, dental, and vision insurance for you and your family."} - {"name":"401(k) Match","description":"Employer-matched 401(k) retirement savings plan to support long-term financial security."} - {"name":"Paid Time Off","description":"21 days PTO, 10 days of Wellbeing leave, 5 days of Xtra Leave, 1 volunteer day, 12 paid holidays, plus paid parental leave."} - {"name":"Parental Leave","description":"Paid parental leave to support work-life balance during family transitions."} ## Compensation - **max:** 260000 - **min:** 206000 - **currency:** USD - **stockOptions:** true ## Interview process ### steps - {"name":"Application Screening","description":"Your application will be reviewed by our recruiting team and screened for relevant technical qualifications, backend systems experience, and leadership capabilities. Xero uses AI tools to assist with screening based on job-related qualifications, but human recruiters review all applications before any hiring decision."} - {"name":"Recruiter Conversation","description":"An initial conversation with Xero's recruiting team to discuss your background, experience with distributed systems, payment platforms (if applicable), and leadership approach. This is an opportunity to learn about the Payments Platform team and role expectations."} - {"name":"Technical Deep Dive","description":"A technical conversation with members of the Payments Platform engineering team focused on your experience designing scalable backend systems, high-throughput services, database architecture, and cloud platforms. Expect questions about specific challenges you've solved and architectural decisions you've made."} - {"name":"System Design Discussion","description":"A collaborative technical session where you'll discuss designing a payment platform component or similar high-throughput system. This explores your approach to scalability, reliability, trade-offs, and how you think through complex distributed systems challenges."} - {"name":"Leadership and Collaboration Interview","description":"Conversation with senior engineering leadership about your approach to mentoring, setting technical direction, cross-functional collaboration, and fostering an inclusive engineering culture. This explores how you partner with product and non-technical teams."} - {"name":"Executive Conversation","description":"Final stage meeting with senior leadership or the hiring manager to discuss long-term vision, impact on the Payments Platform, and fit with Xero's culture and strategic direction for financial technology."} ## Full description **The role / impact** In this role, you will help shape the technical foundation for money movement capabilities while unlocking new product lines globally. You will guide the design and development of reliable, scalable, performant, and secure services for the platform, ensuring operational excellence and direct business outcomes. This is a rare chance to join an early-stage initiative, make foundational architectural decisions, and have a visible impact on the future of small businesses. By contributing directly to production code and proof-of-concepts, you will solve complex financial technology challenges at a massive scale. **The team / how they connect** The Payments Platform team is the engine powering money movement across the entire ecosystem, collaborating closely with product, security, risk, and operations. We are a highly collaborative collective that values technical excellence, inclusion, and continuous innovation. Together, we work cross-functionally to translate complex business needs into resilient engineering solutions that support millions of subscribers. **The team is currently working on / Initially, you will focus on** * Designing and building out payment platform capabilities, such as orchestration, risks & fraud, multi-providers, to accelerate various payment products development and improve operational posture * Building out a global bill payment product to streamline how small businesses manage their cash flow * Developing core high-throughput platform services * Integrating and championing artificial intelligence capabilities to accelerate engineering productivity and enhance developer workflows **Where and how you can work** **This role is based onsite our Vancouver office, where we embrace a hybrid working model, 1-2 days in office a week.** You will have the flexibility to work from home while joining the team in the office for "boost days" to collaborate, socialise, and solve complex problems in person. **We are open to ON or AB applicants who may be willing to relocate and Seattle Area, Washington US applicants (remotely).** **Here are some of the things we are looking for** * You bring a proven track record of delivering highly available, distributed backend systems and designing high-throughput services under real-world constraints * A deep understanding of system architecture, API design, and both SQL and NoSQL databases is essential * Your background includes proficiency in modern backend stacks such as C#, Java, Golang, or C++, alongside cloud-native platforms like AWS * You are passionate about staying hands-on contributing directly to production code, proof-of-concepts, and technical deep dives. * You possess strong leadership capabilities, with a passion for setting technical direction, mentoring engineers, and fostering an inclusive culture * You demonstrate strong ability in breaking down complex problems into clear, actionable solutions while driving agile execution to deliver results. * You are a strong partner to Product, Design, and other cross-functional teams to translate complex business needs into resilient engineering solutions. * You are a champion of advanced usage in AI tools and practices across the team to accelerate development workflows. 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. We are also tech stack agnostic, so please apply if you've worked with adjacent technologies. **Compensation & Total Rewards** At Xero, we value the impact and skills you bring to the team. We don’t just hire for a role; we invest in people. We believe in a Total Package philosophy - which means your value isn't just a single number on a paycheque. While base salary is a core component, we look at your compensation through a holistic lens that includes equity, performance incentives, and world-class benefits. The expected base salary range for this role in: * Washington: **$206,000 - $260,000 USD** Individual pay is determined by various factors, including geography, level of experience, and the specific skills you bring to the role. In addition to base pay, Xero’s roles are eligible for the following forms of variable compensation: * **Variable Pay:** Permanent employees are eligible to participate in our annual bonus and equity (RSU) programs. You may also be eligible for performance-based cash or equity (RSUs) incentives depending on your role level, and company performance. * **Comprehensive Benefits:** Medical, dental, vision, 401(k) match, and 21 days PTO, 10 days of Wellbeing leave, 5 days of Xtra Leave, 1 volunteer day, 12 paid holidays, paid parental leave. Further information included on our [**Xero Perks**](https://careers.xero.com/inside-xero/benefits-wellbeing/) page. _Individual pay is determined by various factors, including geography, level of experience, and the specific skills you bring to the role._ Xero uses AI to help screen applications based on job-related qualifications. These tools assist our recruiters but do not make automated hiring decisions. A human recruiter reviews all candidates before any hiring action is taken.