# Senior Engineer
**Company:** [Xero](https://scaleengineer.com/companies/xero)
Join Xero's Reporting team as a Senior Engineer, owning meaningful end-to-end initiatives in a hands-on role building customer-facing reporting experiences for small businesses. You'll design and deliver high-quality software solutions in a data-heavy analytics environment, working across a collaborative technical team to improve how businesses understand their financial performance and complete critical compliance workflows.
**Role:** Senior Engineer
**Seniority:** Senior
**Locations:** CAN: VAN (333 Seymour St)
**Salary:** 120000–160000 NZD
[Apply](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/xero/6759da20-cb32-4fbb-af02-31211b600e39)
Canonical: https://scaleengineer.com/jobs/xero/senior-engineer-6759da20
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## Responsibilities

- End-to-End Project Ownership: Own meaningful reporting initiatives, services, and workstreams from initial design and problem-shaping through implementation, production validation, and ongoing improvement. Take full accountability for feature delivery while maintaining high quality standards and ensuring customer value realization.
- Customer-Facing Experience Development: Build and enhance customer-facing reporting experiences with a strong focus on clarity, usability, reliability, and performance. Create intuitive interfaces that enable small businesses and their advisors to understand financial data, complete compliance tasks, and make informed business decisions.
- Platform Modernization and Developer Experience: Contribute to the modernization of the reporting platform infrastructure, improving developer experience and delivery velocity. Identify technical debt, propose architectural improvements, and implement solutions that enhance the codebase maintainability and reduce deployment friction.
- Technical Leadership and Code Quality: Write maintainable, high-quality code while providing strong design and code review feedback to team members. Establish and enforce quality standards through comprehensive testing, observability instrumentation, and operational readiness practices that support production excellence.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, designers, platform engineers, and adjacent technical teams to deliver well-considered outcomes. Navigate ambiguity effectively, break complex problems into actionable steps, and make sound technical decisions with high autonomy while keeping stakeholders aligned.
- Mentoring and Knowledge Sharing: Support and mentor other engineers through hands-on guidance, code reviews, technical discussions, and knowledge-sharing sessions. Help raise the engineering team's capability and quality bar while fostering a culture of continuous learning and technical excellence.
- Data Platform Integration: Work with shared data and platform capabilities across Xero to support superior reporting outcomes. Leverage common services, data infrastructure, and platform abstractions while ensuring optimal performance, data correctness, and query efficiency for analytics-heavy use cases.

## Requirements

### education

- {"name":"Computer Science Degree or Equivalent","description":"Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, or a related technical field, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating strong foundational computer science knowledge and practical engineering competency."}

### technical

- {"name":"Backend or Platform Engineering Excellence","description":"Proven expertise in backend system design, platform engineering, or product engineering with demonstrated experience building robust, scalable services in SaaS environments handling meaningful scale or technical complexity."}
- {"name":"Data and Analytics Systems","description":"Strong experience building data-heavy or analytics-oriented applications with solid instincts for query performance optimization, data correctness, integrity validation, and user experience design for analytics workflows."}
- {"name":"Systems Design and Architectural Thinking","description":"Solid systems thinking with the ability to design scalable architectures, understand system dependencies, evaluate trade-offs between performance and maintainability, and make sound technical decisions with a high degree of autonomy."}
- {"name":"Code Quality and Testing Practices","description":"Deep commitment to writing testable, maintainable code with hands-on involvement in testing strategy, continuous integration practices, and production monitoring to ensure reliability and support rapid iteration."}

### experience

- {"name":"Significant Project Ownership","description":"Track record of owning significant features, services, or technical initiatives end-to-end, from problem definition and design through delivery, launch, and post-production support with measurable impact on product or platform outcomes."}
- {"name":"SaaS Product Development","description":"Experience working in SaaS environments with exposure to scaling challenges, multi-tenant architecture considerations, continuous deployment practices, and the balance between velocity and quality that characterizes modern product teams."}
- {"name":"Ambiguity Navigation and Problem-Solving","description":"Demonstrated ability to work effectively through ambiguous requirements, create clarity for yourself and others, decompose complex problems into manageable steps, and drive decisions forward with incomplete information."}

## Skills

### required

- {"name":"Hands-On Software Engineering","description":"Stay actively engaged in coding and technical implementation rather than purely managing others. Write clean, testable code and maintain deep familiarity with your team's technology stack and production systems."}
- {"name":"Systems Design and Architecture","description":"Design scalable, maintainable systems with sound engineering judgment. Evaluate architectural trade-offs, consider long-term implications, and build solutions that balance technical excellence with business constraints."}
- {"name":"Collaborative Problem-Solving","description":"Communicate clearly with engineers, product managers, designers, and stakeholders. Listen actively, ask clarifying questions, and work together to shape problems and drive solutions that align with customer needs and technical feasibility."}
- {"name":"Full-Cycle Feature Development","description":"Demonstrate capability across the entire product development lifecycle: requirements clarification, technical design, implementation, testing, deployment, production validation, monitoring, and iteration based on real-world usage patterns."}
- {"name":"Production Reliability and Observability","description":"Design and build systems with production robustness in mind. Implement comprehensive logging, monitoring, and alerting; think through failure modes; and ensure applications maintain high availability and performance at scale."}

### preferred

- {"name":"AI-Enabled Development Tools","description":"Familiarity with modern AI-assisted coding tools and AI-enabled development workflows. Use these tools judiciously to accelerate development velocity while maintaining code quality and ensuring generated code meets your team's standards."}
- {"name":"Reporting and Analytics Experience","description":"Prior experience building reporting systems, analytics platforms, or data-intensive applications. Understanding of data warehouse concepts, analytical query patterns, and the unique performance considerations of analytics workloads is valuable."}
- {"name":"Accounting Software Domain Knowledge","description":"Familiarity with accounting principles, financial compliance requirements, or the accounting software domain. This knowledge accelerates context acquisition and helps you understand customer problems and regulatory considerations."}
- {"name":"Observability and Monitoring Implementation","description":"Hands-on experience implementing observability solutions, distributed tracing, structured logging, and metrics collection. Ability to design systems that provide visibility into production behavior and support rapid incident diagnosis and resolution."}

## Tech stack

### tools

- {"name":"Git and Version Control","description":"Advanced proficiency with Git, code branching strategies, pull request workflows, and collaborative development practices that support team coordination and code review."}
- {"name":"CI/CD and Deployment Pipelines","description":"Hands-on experience with continuous integration and continuous deployment tools such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar platforms for automating testing and production deployments."}
- {"name":"Monitoring and Observability Platforms","description":"Experience with tools like Datadog, New Relic, Prometheus, ELK Stack, or similar for implementing comprehensive monitoring, logging, and alerting that provides production visibility."}
- {"name":"Containerization and Orchestration","description":"Hands-on experience with Docker for containerization and Kubernetes or similar orchestration platforms for deployment and scaling of cloud-native applications."}

### others

- {"name":"Cloud Platforms","description":"Working knowledge of AWS, Google Cloud Platform, or Azure for deploying and managing scalable SaaS applications, including compute, storage, and networking services."}
- {"name":"Agile Development Practices","description":"Experience working in agile environments with sprint planning, iterative delivery, collaborative refinement, and continuous feedback loops that align technical delivery with product goals."}

### databases

- {"name":"PostgreSQL or MySQL","description":"Relational database experience for transactional systems with expertise in schema design, query optimization, indexing strategies, and handling complex data relationships."}
- {"name":"Data Warehouse or Analytics Databases","description":"Familiarity with analytics-optimized databases such as Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift for building efficient reporting and analytics systems that handle large-scale data processing."}

### languages

- {"name":"Java or C#","description":"Primary backend languages commonly used in modern SaaS platforms for building scalable, type-safe services with mature ecosystems and frameworks."}
- {"name":"JavaScript or TypeScript","description":"Full-stack development capabilities with JavaScript/TypeScript are valuable for building integrated product experiences and collaborating effectively across frontend and backend teams."}
- {"name":"SQL","description":"Strong SQL expertise is essential for data-heavy reporting applications, enabling you to write efficient queries, optimize database performance, and work effectively with data warehouses and analytics systems."}

### frameworks

- {"name":"Spring Boot or ASP.NET Core","description":"Modern backend framework experience for building microservices, RESTful APIs, and scalable server-side components with emphasis on productivity and maintainability."}
- {"name":"React or Vue.js","description":"Experience building responsive, performant user interfaces for reporting dashboards and analytics-focused applications that display complex data intuitively."}

## Benefits

### benefits

- {"name":"Professional Development and Learning","description":"Access to learning resources, conference attendance budgets, and continuous education opportunities to stay current with evolving technologies, design patterns, and best practices in cloud-native and SaaS development."}
- {"name":"Flexible Work Arrangements","description":"Remote-flexible work options that support work-life balance while enabling close collaboration with the distributed Xero engineering team across time zones."}
- {"name":"Competitive Compensation Package","description":"Competitive salary aligned with market rates for senior engineers in ANZ regions, with regular performance reviews and opportunities for salary progression based on impact and contribution."}
- {"name":"Health and Wellness Benefits","description":"Comprehensive health insurance coverage, mental wellness support, employee assistance programs, and fitness benefits to support your physical and mental wellbeing."}
- {"name":"Equity and Ownership","description":"Opportunities to participate in equity or share schemes that align your personal success with Xero's long-term growth and provide potential upside as the company scales."}
- {"name":"Collaborative Engineering Culture","description":"Work with talented engineers who care about code quality, share knowledge generously, and embrace technical excellence. Participate in design reviews, architecture discussions, and mentoring relationships that accelerate your growth."}

## Compensation

- **max:** 160000
- **min:** 120000
- **currency:** NZD
- **stockOptions:** true

## Interview process

### steps

- {"name":"Initial Screening Call","description":"Introductory conversation with a Recruiter or Hiring Manager to discuss your background, career goals, and alignment with the Senior Engineer role at Xero. This call typically lasts 20-30 minutes and focuses on understanding your experience and motivation."}
- {"name":"Technical Depth Interview","description":"Detailed technical conversation with one or more Senior Engineers from the Reporting team. You'll discuss significant projects you've owned, architectural decisions, trade-offs you've navigated, and your approach to building scalable systems. This 60-minute discussion assesses technical judgment and systems thinking."}
- {"name":"Systems Design Discussion","description":"Collaborative conversation focused on designing a data-heavy or reporting-focused system. You'll work through requirements, discuss architectural approaches, consider performance and scalability implications, and explain your reasoning. This 60-minute session evaluates your design thinking and communication skills."}
- {"name":"Product Sense and Collaboration","description":"Discussion with a Product Manager and/or Designer to explore how you approach product problems, work through ambiguity, and collaborate cross-functionally. You'll discuss how you balance technical excellence with customer outcomes and prioritize initiatives for impact."}
- {"name":"Team and Cultural Fit Discussion","description":"Conversation with 1-2 engineers or team leads to explore your mentoring approach, communication style, and values alignment with Xero's engineering culture. Discuss how you've contributed to raising team capability and fostered learning environments."}
- {"name":"Hiring Manager Final Conversation","description":"Final discussion with the Hiring Manager or Reporting team lead to address any remaining questions, discuss role expectations, career growth opportunities within the Reporting group, and explore long-term trajectory at Xero."}

## Full description
## **The role / impact**

This is a hands-on Senior Engineer role in Xero’s Reporting team, helping build and improve one of the most-used parts of our product.

As a Senior Engineer, you’ll own meaningful work end to end, from shaping the problem and designing the approach through to delivery, production validation, and ongoing improvement. This is a role for someone who cares about customer outcomes, writes high-quality software, and enjoys solving real product and platform problems with other strong engineers.

Your work will have a direct impact on how small businesses and their advisors understand performance, complete important reporting and compliance tasks, and get to the right answers faster.

## **The team / how they connect**

You’ll join Xero’s Reporting group, which builds experiences customers rely on to understand their numbers, share insights, and support key accounting and compliance workflows.

Reporting has real product depth, technical complexity, and customer impact. As a Senior Engineer, you’ll have meaningful end-to-end ownership and the chance to make visible improvements to a product customers rely on.

You’ll work closely with engineers, product managers, designers, and adjacent platform teams. Success in this role comes from strong collaboration, good judgement, and the ability to move work forward while keeping quality, maintainability, and customer value in mind.

## **Initially, you will focus on**

* Owning meaningful reporting initiatives, services, or workstreams from design through rollout, production validation, and ongoing improvement
* Building and improving customer-facing reporting experiences, with a focus on clarity, usability, reliability, and performance
* Contributing to the modernisation of parts of the reporting platform and helping improve developer experience and delivery speed
* Working with shared data and platform capabilities across Xero where they support better reporting outcomes
* Writing high-quality, maintainable code and contributing strong design and code review feedback
* Handling complexity and ambiguity well, breaking problems into practical steps and making sound technical decisions
* Working closely with product, design, and other engineers to deliver useful, well-considered outcomes
* Supporting other engineers through mentoring, knowledge-sharing, and everyday technical leadership
* Helping raise the quality bar through testing, observability, operational readiness, and continuous improvement

## **Here are some of the things we are looking for in a Senior Engineer**

* You bring strong experience in backend, platform, or product engineering, ideally in a SaaS environment with meaningful scale or complexity
* You have a track record of owning significant features, services, or initiatives end to end
* You have solid systems thinking and engineering judgement, and can make good technical decisions with a high degree of autonomy
* You have experience building for data-heavy or analytics-oriented use cases, with a good instinct for performance, correctness, and usability
* You’re comfortable working through ambiguity and can create clarity for yourself and others
* You stay hands-on and care deeply about code quality, testing, and production outcomes
* You communicate clearly and work well with engineers, product managers, designers, and other stakeholders
* You enjoy mentoring others and helping lift the people and practices around you
* You’re curious about better ways of working, including AI-enabled tools and workflows, and use good judgement in applying them