Engineering Manager - Platform

The role / impact

As an Engineering Manager, you will drive the delivery of high-quality software by leading high-performing, inclusive teams. You will act as the technical anchor, maintaining an informed opinion on system health and code quality while balancing product delivery velocity with operational excellence.

Your influence extends to championing AI-native workflows and guiding your team to hone their engineering craft. You will proactively remove the complexity tax—such as toil and brittle environments—to allow your engineers to focus on deep work and deliver impactful outcomes that align with business and customer goals.

The team & how they connect

The Platform & Infrastructure teams operate as a mini-consultancy within Xero, focusing on high-priority projects that improve engineering enablement and productivity across the organisation. We work together to build foundational tools and golden pathways that integrate automation into developer workflows, ensuring a seamless and unified experience.

Initially, you will focus on

• Leading a team of talented engineers, fostering a culture of psychological safety, continuous growth, and high engagement.

• Injecting AI across the entire software development life cycle, from documentation to testing, to drive meaningful efficiency gains.

• Delivering a predictable roadmap by translating high-level business goals into executable engineering plans while resolving cross-team dependencies.

• Driving high engineering throughput through strong architecture, code quality, and efforts to decouple legacy systems.

• Supporting incident response and continuous improvement to ensure system health and high availability.

Where and how you can work

This role won't have any mandated office days; however we embrace a hybrid way of working that includes "boost days" in the office, where we come together to collaborate, build relationships, and drive our engineering culture forward. Our AU offices are in Sydney and Melbourne.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• You bring a deep understanding of software architecture and the ability to guide teams through technical modernisation and decoupling legacy systems.

• A proven track record of coaching and mentoring engineers while building a positive, inclusive team culture with psychological safety is essential.

• Your background includes leading the delivery of complex software roadmaps in agile environments while managing dependencies and timelines effectively.

• You possess the technical skills to engage in architectural trade-offs and maintain high standards for code quality and system health.

• An ability to make fast, informed decisions and a bias for action when redirecting team focus toward the most impactful business outcomes will be vital.

• You have experience championing developer experience by proactively managing technical debt and reducing operational toil.

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.