Engineering Manager

Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive. 

At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.

Join our dynamic and innovative team at Xero as an Engineering Manager for our Payroll Services division. As a leader in the Small Business Accounting Space, we are seeking a highly skilled and experienced individual to oversee the development and maintenance of our new and improved payroll services. Our ideal candidate should have a strong technical background in engineering and a proven track record of managing complex projects and teams. If you are passionate about solving complex problems and creating innovative solutions, this could be the perfect role for you. Come be a part of our growing company and make an impact on the future of our services.

What You'll Do:

• Lead and manage a team of engineers to develop and maintain high-quality payroll services for our clients.
• Develop and implement strategies to ensure the successful delivery of payroll services, including setting goals and timelines, managing resources and budget, and identifying and mitigating potential risks.
• Foster a collaborative and positive team dynamic, providing guidance and support to team members and promoting a culture of continuous learning and growth.
• Utilize your strong technical background to provide technical leadership and guidance to the team, ensuring that projects are completed efficiently and effectively oversee the planning, design, and implementation of new features and enhancements to our payroll services, ensuring they meet the needs and expectations of our clients.
• Stay up-to-date with industry trends, best practices, and new technologies, and apply this knowledge to continuously improve our payroll services.
• Manage and maintain relationships with stakeholders, including cross-functional teams, clients, and external partners, to ensure alignment and effective communication throughout the development process.
• Oversee the hiring, training, and development of new team members, and provide ongoing mentorship and support to help them reach their full potential.
• Monitor and analyze key metrics and performance indicators to assess the success of our payroll services and make data-driven decisions to drive continuous improvement.
• Work with other engineering managers and leaders to share knowledge, best practices, and resources, and support the overall growth and success of the engineering team.

What Success Looks Like:

• Divisions have a shared understanding of the cross-team plan including, the priorities, work sequencing and how they collaborate to enable more effective delivery of products that our customers love.
• Assess risks and issues - ensure they are are actively managed; The right people are connected to remove the concerns quickly.
• Our Product & Technology teams are well supported to do their best work, as their plans are clear and they are minimally blocked, which enables them to bring quality products to our customers more effectively.
• Senior Leaders are aware of the state of our key initiatives and are contributing to the enablement of the work, as needed (ie blocker removal).

What You'll bring with you:

• Collaboration. You are an expert at leading the building of plans for complex, multi-team execution. You are recognized for your ability to co-create plans in a manner that enriches shared ownership. You know how to spot risk and coordinate mitigations and are quick to respond to issues, pulling the right people together to resolve the problem.
• Technical Expertise. You are comfortable to contribute in technical dialogue and are able to build a solid understanding of the technology components that comprise a product. You are able to use your technical knowledge to detect and mitigate challenges and risks in delivering programs at Xero. Past experience as an engineer is an asset.
• Agile mindset. You are deeply familiar with agile concepts and you are able to run programs that ensure agility principles can thrive.
• Influencing Skills. You can influence at all levels of the organisation, from pod to product and engineering leadership teams through various influencing techniques. You can convert multiple perspectives into compelling recommendations to move a program forward.
• Exceptional Communications. You confidently communicate the state of your Initiative, both written and verbal, and can adapt your language and communication style to suit any audience. You are comfortable leaning into crucial conversations from the pod to PELT level.
• Self-Directed and proactive. You thrive in an ambiguous and fast-paced environment. You take ownership and follow through on your commitments

Why Xero? 

Diversity of people brings diversity of thought, and we like that. Our human-first culture of respect, fairness, and inclusion is what helps Xeros thrive and work and beyond. Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, employee resource groups, wellbeing programming and allowances, medical, dental, vision, and disability insurance, fertility and family forming financial support, 401k contribution matching, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices with snacks and break areas, flexible working, career development and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.

Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single competency or experience. If you are excited about this role, but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be just the right person for this role and Xero. If you have any support or access requirements, we encourage you to advise us at time of application and throughout the interview process.