Lead/Staff Backend Engineer, Payments Platform - Xero

Job Title: Lead/Staff Backend Engineer, Payments Platform
Job Location: San Mateo, US
Job Listing URL: https://jobs.lever.co/xero/41333484-f858-41c4-ae27-397cf8fbbd83
Job Description: Our Purpose
At Xero, we’re here to help you supercharge your business. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we’re not only making life better for small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.

The Opportunity: Shape the Future of Money Movement

Xero reimagined accounting software. Now, we’re reimagining the flow of money itself. We’re making a critical, multi-year investment in our new Payments Platform organization, the engine that will power payments across all of Xero’s ecosystem.

As a Lead/Staff Engineer on the Payments Platform, you’ll be at the forefront of building scalable systems that redefine how millions of small businesses move money. This is a rare chance to join at an early stage, make foundational architectural decisions, and have a massive, visible impact on Xero’s future.
What You'll Bring With You
8+ Years of software engineering experience, with a proven track record as a Staff / Technical Lead delivering highly available, distributed backend systems at scale.
Deep expertise in system architecture, API design, and building high-throughput, reliable services—understanding how to design under the constraints of both new and existing systems.
Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend stack (e.g. C# a bonus, Java, Golang, C++) and experience with cloud-native platforms (AWS a bonus).
Experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases.
Demonstrated leadership in setting technical direction, solving complex problems, and mentoring senior and junior engineers.
Experience in payments, fintech, or other highly regulated, compliance-heavy domains (preferred but not required).
Strong collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering, product, and operations.
Proven ability to break down complex problems into clear, actionable solutions and drive agile execution.
Experience auditing codebases to uphold high standards for security, testability, and maintainability, with the ability to set and guide code design decisions.
What You’ll Do
Define and build core platform services: Lead the design and development of reliable, scalable, performant, and secure services for Xero’s Payments Platform.
Architect the future of payments: Shape the technical foundation for Xero’s money movement capabilities while unlocking new product lines.
Stay hands-on: Contribute directly to production code, proof-of-concepts, and technical deep dives.
Solve complex problems: Tackle challenging fintech and distributed systems problems with innovative solutions.
Drive technical excellence: Set a high bar for reliability, security, and scale through design reviews, mentoring, and best practices.
Collaborate cross-functionally: Partner with Product, Security, Risk, and Operations teams to translate complex business needs into resilient engineering solutions.
Mentor and grow engineers: Act as a role model, coach, and technical leader, fostering a culture of inclusion, collaboration, and excellence.
Ensure operational excellence: Lead on-call practices, build robust observability, and champion high-performance, reliable systems.
Drive innovation: Encourage experimentation and adoption of new technologies, staying ahead of industry trends to strengthen our platform.
Why Join Xero’s Payments Platform?
Massive Impact: Shape a global payments platform critical to Xero’s revenue and customer growth.
Hard Problems, High Scale: Solve complex fintech challenges: global rails, orchestration, compliance, fraud designs and more.
Early Stage, Real Ownership: Define foundational systems that future revenue and product lines will depend on.
Culture & Growth: Join a team that values excellence, collaboration, and innovation—while providing the support to do the best work of your career.

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