Senior Software Engineer, AI Enablement
Senior Software Engineer · Senior · Full Time
Opens Xero's application page
Role
What you'll do.
This Senior Software Engineer role focuses on AI Enablement at Xero, where you'll design and maintain internal platforms and tools that empower engineers across the organization to work effectively with artificial intelligence. You'll take ownership of projects end-to-end from conception through production, collaborating with major vendors like AWS, Microsoft, and GitHub on cutting-edge technologies while establishing best practices for AI-native development. The ideal candidate combines hands-on software engineering expertise with strong production discipline, clear communication skills, and genuine curiosity about the future direction of AI engineering.
Responsibilities
- Design and Build Internal AI Platforms: Architect and develop an internal skills marketplace and AI tool distribution platform used across Xero's engineering organization, ensuring scalability, reliability, and intuitive developer experience for end-user engineers who depend on these systems daily.
- End-to-End Ownership and Production Excellence: Own projects completely from early experimentation through production deployment, including writing comprehensive runbooks, establishing monitoring strategies, designing rollback procedures, and maintaining operational excellence to ensure platform reliability at scale.
- Establish AI Engineering Best Practices: Develop guidance, documentation, and best practices for authoring AI agent skills and implementing autonomous remediation tasks, helping establish Xero's standards for AI-native development patterns across the engineering organization.
- Vendor Collaboration and Technology Leadership: Work directly with AWS, Microsoft, and GitHub on early-access and pre-release technologies not yet available in market, positioning Xero at the forefront of AI engineering innovation and providing strategic input on emerging capabilities.
- Technical Leadership and Mentorship: Guide and challenge the AI Enablement team as it scales, helping shape technical direction, mentor junior engineers on platform development, and foster a collaborative culture despite distributed team presence across multiple Australian and New Zealand time zones.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner closely with the product manager and product engineering teams across Xero to understand requirements, gather feedback, and ensure the AI platforms and tooling genuinely solve real engineering challenges and accelerate development velocity.
- Architectural Decision Making: Lead technical design discussions, evaluate technology choices for platform components, and make informed decisions about when to build versus integrate, considering both immediate project needs and long-term organizational AI engineering strategy.
Qualifications
What we look for.
Technical
C# and .NET Framework Expertise
Strong hands-on experience building production systems with C# and .NET, with deep understanding of the ecosystem including async/await patterns, dependency injection, configuration management, and deployment considerations for cloud environments.
AWS Cloud Platform Proficiency
Demonstrated experience architecting and deploying systems on AWS, with practical knowledge of compute services (EC2, Lambda), storage solutions (S3), networking, monitoring tools (CloudWatch), and integration patterns relevant to platform development.
AI and Large Language Model Fundamentals
Understanding of modern AI concepts including large language models, prompt engineering, agentic systems, and AI-native application patterns, with demonstrated ability to learn rapidly and apply emerging technologies in production contexts.
Distributed Systems and Platform Design
Proven experience designing platforms and internal tools that serve as dependencies for other engineering teams, with understanding of API design, versioning strategies, backward compatibility, and infrastructure-as-code practices.
Python and TypeScript Development
Practical experience building and maintaining applications in Python and TypeScript, particularly for AI tooling, data processing, and frontend components that interact with backend services.
Production Operations and Observability
Strong discipline around production readiness including monitoring setup, alerting strategies, log aggregation, performance profiling, and understanding of operational concerns that affect reliability and maintainability of complex systems.
Agentic System Architecture
Knowledge of designing, implementing, and orchestrating autonomous agents for remediation tasks and skills execution, with understanding of failure modes, recovery strategies, and safe rollback mechanisms for autonomous systems.
Education
Computer Science Degree or Equivalent
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related discipline, or equivalent professional experience demonstrating deep software engineering fundamentals and ability to solve complex technical problems systematically.
Experience
Internal Developer Platform or Tools Development
Demonstrated experience building internal tools, platforms, or infrastructure that other engineers depend on, with track record of delivering reliable, well-documented solutions that improve developer productivity and experience.
Production-Grade System Ownership
Experience taking projects from concept through production, owning the complete lifecycle including architectural decisions, implementation, testing strategies, deployment planning, and ongoing operational maintenance and monitoring.
Cloud-Native Architecture Implementation
Hands-on experience designing and implementing cloud-native systems, working with containerization, orchestration, serverless patterns, and cloud-specific services in production environments at meaningful scale.
Cross-Functional Stakeholder Collaboration
Experience working effectively with product managers, other engineering teams, and external vendors, communicating technical concepts clearly to non-technical audiences and building alignment around technical direction and trade-offs.
Skills
Required
C# Programming
Expert-level proficiency in C# language features, object-oriented design principles, and frameworks for building scalable backend systems.
.NET Platform Development
Deep experience with .NET ecosystem including ASP.NET Core, dependency injection frameworks, configuration management, and deployment considerations for distributed applications.
AWS Cloud Services
Hands-on expertise with AWS services including compute, storage, networking, monitoring, and cost optimization strategies for platform-scale applications.
Software Architecture Design
Ability to design scalable, maintainable systems with clear separation of concerns, thoughtful API contracts, and consideration for operational requirements and system reliability.
Database Design and Optimization
Proficiency in both relational database design and query optimization, with understanding of scaling strategies, indexing, and performance troubleshooting.
Monitoring and Observability
Experience implementing comprehensive monitoring solutions including metrics collection, log aggregation, distributed tracing, and alert configuration for production systems.
DevOps and Infrastructure as Code
Practical knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, containerization, infrastructure automation, and deployment strategies for reliable production releases.
API Design and Integration
Ability to design clean, intuitive APIs that serve as platform foundations, with understanding of versioning, backward compatibility, and integration patterns with external services.
Preferred
Python Development for AI Tooling
Nice to haveExperience building Python applications, particularly for data processing, AI integration, or scientific computing applications that complement backend systems.
TypeScript and Frontend Development
Nice to haveFamiliarity with TypeScript and modern frontend frameworks for building user interfaces that interact with platform services, improving developer experience of tools.
AI Agent Development and Orchestration
Nice to haveHands-on experience designing, implementing, or orchestrating autonomous agents, including understanding of agentic design patterns and failure recovery mechanisms.
Large Language Model Integration
Nice to havePractical experience integrating LLMs into applications, working with model APIs, understanding prompt engineering, and managing LLM-related costs and latency considerations.
GitHub Platform and DevOps Integration
Nice to haveFamiliarity with GitHub Actions, GitHub Enterprise, or other GitHub platform features for CI/CD and developer workflow automation.
Prompt Engineering and AI Engineering Practices
Nice to haveUnderstanding of effective prompt design, few-shot learning patterns, and emerging best practices in prompt engineering and AI-native application development.
Technical Leadership and Mentorship
Nice to haveExperience leading technical initiatives, mentoring junior engineers, and establishing engineering standards and best practices across teams or organizations.
Open Source Community Engagement
Nice to haveDemonstrated involvement in open source projects, communities, or initiatives, showing ability to engage with external technical communities and stay current with emerging technologies.
Tech stack
Languages
Frameworks
Databases
Tools
Other
Compensation
Pay and benefits.
Base·AUD 180,000 – 240,000
Equity·Stock options
Benefits
Equity or Stock Options
Meaningful equity stake in Xero as a publicly listed company, offering long-term wealth building opportunity and alignment with company success.
Flexible Work Arrangement
Hybrid working model with flexibility to work from anywhere in Australia or New Zealand, with regular in-person boost days for team collaboration and planning.
Professional Development
Access to training, conference attendance, and continuous learning opportunities to develop expertise in emerging AI technologies, cloud platforms, and software engineering practices.
Collaborative Culture
Work with talented engineers and product professionals in a close-knit, genuinely collaborative team that values learning, respectful challenge, and diverse perspectives.
Access to Cutting-Edge Technology
Early access to emerging technologies from major vendors like AWS, Microsoft, and GitHub, positioning you at the forefront of AI engineering innovation.
Purpose-Driven Work
Contribute to platforms and tools that empower thousands of engineers within Xero to be more productive and effective, with real visibility into your impact.
Health and Wellness Benefits
Comprehensive health, dental, and mental health benefits supporting overall well-being and work-life balance.
Parental Leave and Family Support
Generous parental leave policies and family support benefits reflecting modern workplace values and commitment to employee well-being.
Process
Interview steps.
- 01
Initial Screening Conversation
Informal conversation with recruiter to discuss background, career interests, and understanding of the AI Enablement role, assessing cultural fit and interest level.
- 02
Technical Assessment or Take-Home Challenge
Practical technical evaluation focused on C#, .NET, and software architecture skills, potentially involving system design discussion or coding challenge relevant to platform development.
- 03
Technical Round with Engineering Team
In-depth technical interview with AI Enablement team members covering architecture decisions, production discipline, and problem-solving approach for building reliable internal platforms.
- 04
System Design Discussion
Collaborative whiteboard or discussion session exploring how you would design key components of the AI platform, including scalability considerations and vendor integration patterns.
- 05
Behavioral and Culture Interview
Conversation focused on cross-functional collaboration, communication style, learning approach, and ability to challenge decisions respectfully within team environment.
- 06
Product and Strategy Alignment
Discussion with product manager or team lead about your understanding of AI engineering trends, thoughts on platform direction, and vision for how internal AI tools can drive organizational capability.
Full posting
Original listing.
Senior Software Engineer, AI Enablement
The role & impact
You'll join a small team that builds the tools, platforms and best practices helping engineers across Xero work with AI. Rather than shipping something once and moving on, you'll own it end to end from early experimentation through to production, including the run books, monitoring and rollback thinking that keep it reliable once real engineers depend on it day to day.
This is a role with real influence. You'll help shape the technical direction of an internal skills marketplace and AI distribution platform used across the wider engineering organisation, work directly with vendors like AWS, Microsoft and GitHub on technology that isn't public yet, and help guide and challenge a team that's still early in its AI journey.
The team & how they connect
The AI Enablement team sits within Engineering Experience and focuses on helping product engineering teams work faster and better with AI through platforms, tooling and practical guidance rather than just standard tooling. It's a close-knit team, spread across Melbourne, Sydney and the Sunshine Coast, with a product manager based in Wellington, who stay connected through regular syncs and a genuinely collaborative way of working despite the distance.
Initially, you will focus on
Our current stack is C#, .NET and AWS, with Python and TypeScript picked up along the way for AI tooling
Building an internal skills marketplace and a distribution platform for AI tools used across Xero's engineering org
Developing guidance and best practice for authoring agent skills, including agents for remediation tasks
Collaborating directly with AWS, Microsoft and GitHub on early-access technology not yet available in market
Where and how you can work
You can be based anywhere in Australia, and we're also open to candidates based in New Zealand. The team works in a hybrid way and is used to connecting across time zones, with regular in person boost days to come together, plan and collaborate as a team.
Here are some of the things we're looking for, for this role
You bring hands-on software engineering experience, ideally with C#, .NET and AWS — if your background is elsewhere, we're still keen to talk, as good engineers pick up new stacks quickly
You've built internal tools or platforms that other engineers genuinely relied on
Production discipline matters to you: You write runbooks, set up monitoring and think through rollback before anything goes live
You communicate clearly and know how to bring people along with an idea, not just ship code quietly in the background
You're curious about coding agents and AI-native tools, and you keep an eye on where AI engineering is heading
You can challenge a decision directly and respectfully, and you learn new things in a structured, quality-focused way
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.
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