Xero · 3 months ago
Principal Engineer, Data Reliability
Seattle, US
Full-time
Hybrid
Lead/Staff
$280K/yr - $325K/yrXero is dedicated to helping small businesses thrive by automating tasks and providing actionable insights. They are seeking a Principal Engineer to join their Data Reliability Leadership team, focusing on enhancing their database platform and driving innovation through effective tooling and collaboration across teams.
AccountingBillingFinTechPersonal FinanceSaaSSoftware
Responsibilities
Create software - Work on initiatives that span multiple teams to improve how Xero creates and delivers software. You’ll guide engineering practices of teams, helping them achieve product goals via world-class engineering techniques. Advocate for the adoption of new technology and tooling to support product requirements. Guide teams in defining and implementing SLOs. Ensure security and data guidelines are implemented
Deliver Golden Pathway tooling - Guide the strategy and implementation of golden pathway tooling, to remove complexity and enable Xero’s Engineering Teams to innovate on top of the database platform
Resolve issues - Focus on systemic and strategic prevention of issues by implementing practices and tooling that make world class engineering easy, and limit the scope for failure either during the development lifecycle or in production. Identify and help refocus efforts when projects veer off course, ensuring results meaningfully impact customers and the business. For the Principal Engineer role this would involve participation in the team on-call roster
Engineering standards & frameworks - Be involved with the creation and promotion of Xero wide as well as portfolio level standards and frameworks. Research industry best practice and implement as appropriate in the context of Xero. Ensure team’s needs and feedback is represented in upcoming standards. Shape thinking on DevOps culture and proactively advocate for paying down technical debt
Deliver infrastructure in a production environment - Guide teams in delivering scalable and efficient infrastructure, balancing automation, performance, and customer experience. Ensured employment pipelines are fit for purpose. Coach and support engineers to ensure all software is running as expected. Proactively work to prevent customer facing problems. Contribute to the design of scalable systems, balancing flexibility, reliability, and performance to meet strategic objectives
Qualification
Required
Proven hands-on expertise and deep technical knowledge spanning both software engineering and DevOps
Extensive experience in hands-on technical leadership positions, with multiple years of experience running PostgreSQL workloads at scale
Previous experience modernising database workloads to PostgreSQL, running migrations from Self Hosted infrastructure to cloud managed
Technical leadership experience on cloud-native platforms, with a strong focus on scalability, reliability, and performance
Experience leading discussions and implementation for scaling products to 10x times the number of users
Proven experience leading large complex projects to delivery, ensuring technical excellence and alignment with strategic goals
Strong communicator and the ability to influence others in a cross-functional working environment
Ability to develop compelling, clear, and focused messages and effectively present them at executive level
Demonstrated ability to mentor and coach engineers (across all levels) on technical challenges and career development
Benefits
Employee share program
Very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!)
Dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing
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
Employee Share Plan
Beautiful offices with snacks and break areas
Flexible working
Career development
Company
Xero
Xero is an online accounting software for small businesses that automating invoicing, bank reconciliations, and reporting.
Founded in 2006
1001-5000 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Xero has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (4)
2024 (2)
2023 (1)
2022 (3)
2021 (4)
2020 (3)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$1.61BKey Investors
Callaghan InnovationTCVAccel
2024-06-05Post Ipo Debt· $925M
2021-09-08Grant· $0.06M
2020-10-23Grant· $0.06M
Leadership Team
James Coleman
Head of Developer Relations
Peggy Lee
Head of Communications, Asia
Recent News
TradingView
2025-12-21
Company data provided by crunchbase