Lead Engineer- Syft

Xero4 days ago

Location

UK: London (7 Devonshire Square)

Type

Full Time

Salary

GBP 130,000 – 160,000

Level

Lead

Role

Lead Engineer

Posted

Jul 10, 2026

Full TimeLead

The role

Summary

Lead Engineer at Xero's Syft team, responsible for designing and delivering scalable reporting and insights software while mentoring engineers and driving architectural excellence. This hands-on technical leadership role combines hands-on development with strategic oversight of complex distributed systems serving thousands of customers globally. You'll shape product direction, improve operational visibility, and foster a culture of ownership and continuous learning within a collaborative cross-functional engineering environment.

What you'll do

Technical Leadership & Architectural Direction: Set the technical direction for the Syft UK pod, breaking down organizational silos and establishing engineering standards that align with company-wide architectural principles. Drive multi-year product and platform goals through data-driven decision-making and strategic simplification of complex systems.

Hands-On Development & Code Leadership: Write production code regularly while leading the team's technical efforts on high-impact projects including Budgets API, Reporting integration, Benchmarking rebuild, and Syft-X API resilience improvements. Model engineering excellence through your own work and code quality standards.

Team Mentoring & Growth: Coach and mentor engineers to grow their technical capabilities, improve their development practices, and tackle open-ended architectural challenges. Foster a collaborative and safe working environment that encourages ownership, experimentation, feedback, and knowledge sharing.

Operational Excellence & Incident Management: Lead incident response efforts, resolve failure patterns, and implement quality testing strategies to enhance system resilience. Strengthen operational visibility, improve deployment safety, and reduce dependency on individuals for critical production knowledge.

Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, designers, and internal stakeholders to align technical designs with business objectives. Build alignment across distributed teams and communicate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Process Improvement & Safe Changes: Implement safer, smaller change methodologies and improve how the team works across design, delivery, deployment, and support. Establish best practices for code review, testing, monitoring, and continuous deployment to maximize velocity while maintaining quality.

What we look for

Technical

Distributed Systems DesignProven expertise designing and implementing secure, scalable distributed systems that handle high throughput and complex data flows. Experience building event-driven architectures, managing eventual consistency, and ensuring fault tolerance at scale.

Node.js & JavaScript EcosystemStrong proficiency with Node.js, modern JavaScript/TypeScript, and the associated ecosystem. Experience with async patterns, performance optimization, and building production-grade backend services that serve millions of requests.

AWS Cloud PlatformDeep expertise with AWS services including EC2, Lambda, DynamoDB, RDS, S3, CloudWatch, and related infrastructure. Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), serverless architectures, and optimizing cloud costs while maintaining security and reliability.

Production Systems ManagementExtensive experience managing software at scale in production environments. Proficiency with monitoring, observability, logging, alerting, and incident response. Experience reducing technical debt, improving deployment processes, and maintaining system reliability.

API Design & Database ArchitectureExpertise designing RESTful and event-driven APIs, schema design, query optimization, and database performance tuning. Experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases and selecting appropriate data storage solutions for different use cases.

Education

Computer Science or Related FieldBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience. Strong foundation in computer science fundamentals including algorithms, data structures, and system design principles.

Experience

Senior Engineering Experience8-12+ years of software engineering experience with at least 2-3 years in senior or lead engineering roles. Proven track record of designing systems that scale, shipping major features, and handling complex technical projects.

Mentoring & Team LeadershipDemonstrated experience coaching, mentoring, and developing other engineers. Track record of helping teammates grow technically and professionally, fostering ownership culture, and improving team capability.

Incident Management & ResilienceExperience leading incident response efforts, conducting postmortems, implementing corrective actions, and building operational excellence practices. Background in improving system reliability and reducing production incidents.

FinTech or SaaS Product ExperienceExperience building products or platforms in the fintech, accounting software, or enterprise SaaS space is highly valuable. Understanding regulatory requirements, data security, and multi-tenant architecture would be advantageous.

Skills

Required skills

System Design & ArchitectureAbility to design complex, scalable systems with consideration for performance, security, maintainability, and operational requirements. Experience with architectural patterns like microservices, event sourcing, or CQRS.

Technical CommunicationStrong ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to engineers, product managers, and executives. Skill in writing technical design documents, RFCs, and architectural decision records.

Mentoring & LeadershipProven ability to mentor junior and mid-level engineers, provide constructive feedback, and help them develop technical and professional skills. Ability to lead through influence and create psychological safety.

Production OperationsDeep understanding of production systems, observability, monitoring, and troubleshooting. Experience with deployment strategies, chaos engineering, and building operational resilience.

Problem-Solving & AnalysisStrong analytical and problem-solving skills with data-driven decision making. Ability to break down complex problems, identify root causes, and implement sustainable solutions.

Nice to have

Cloud Architecture CertificationAWS Solutions Architect or similar cloud certification demonstrating deep platform knowledge and best practices for cloud-native application design.

Open Source ContributionsActive contributions to open source projects, particularly in Node.js, infrastructure, or developer tools ecosystems. Demonstrates passion for continuous learning and community engagement.

Cross-Team CollaborationExperience working across multiple teams or organizations to align on technical strategy. Ability to balance local team needs with broader organizational objectives.

Scaling ExperienceHands-on experience scaling systems from early-stage to millions of users. Understanding of how to balance speed of development with infrastructure constraints and cost management.

Agile & Modern Development PracticesFamiliarity with agile methodologies, continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD), test-driven development, pair programming, and other modern software development practices.

Compensation & benefits

Salary

GBP 130,000 – 160,000 (annual)

Stock options

Available

Benefits

Flexible Remote Work

Fully remote working environment with the flexibility to work hybrid from modern office spaces if preferred. Designated in-office collaboration days to connect with colleagues and foster team culture.

Professional Development

Investment in continuous learning through conferences, training programs, and professional development opportunities. Access to platforms for expanding technical knowledge and staying current with industry trends.

Collaborative Culture

Work in a cross-functional engineering environment that values ownership, experimentation, feedback, and psychological safety. Culture that encourages knowledge sharing and welcomes diverse perspectives.

Impact & Influence

Direct influence on product direction and technical strategy. Opportunity to shape the technical roadmap across a significant product area serving thousands of customers globally.

Leadership Opportunities

Hands-on technical leadership role with mentoring responsibilities. Opportunity to build and scale engineering teams while maintaining hands-on involvement in architecture and development.

Competitive Compensation Package

Comprehensive benefits including health insurance, retirement plans, and stock options aligned with company performance. Compensation benchmarked against market rates for senior engineering talent.

Interview process

1
Initial Screening Conversation — A conversation with a Xero recruiter to discuss your background, career trajectory, and alignment with the Lead Engineer role. Preparation tip: Be ready to discuss your experience with distributed systems, mentoring others, and scaling production systems.
2
Technical Architecture Discussion — Conversation with senior engineers focused on your approach to system design, scalability challenges, and architectural decision-making. Expect questions about designing APIs, handling failures, and improving system resilience. Bring specific examples from your past work.
3
Leadership & Mentoring Assessment — Discussion with current team leads or hiring manager about your leadership philosophy, mentoring approach, and how you foster team growth. Share examples of how you've developed junior engineers and improved team processes.
4
Hands-On Technical Challenge — A practical coding exercise or system design problem relevant to backend services, APIs, or distributed systems. This evaluates your current technical proficiency and problem-solving approach. You may code in your language of choice.
5
Product & Cross-Functional Collaboration — Conversation with product or cross-functional stakeholders about working with non-technical teams, translating requirements into technical solutions, and aligning technical decisions with business goals.
6
Team & Culture Fit — Final conversation often with the broader team or engineering leadership to assess cultural fit, collaboration style, and alignment with Xero's engineering values around ownership and continuous learning.