Principal Engineer, Data Reliability

Overview

Join to apply for the Principal Engineer, Data Reliability role at Xero.

At Xero, we're here to help supercharge small businesses 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.

About the team

Xero\'s Data Reliability Engineering (DRE) teams own our highly scalable and reliable database platform, supporting our software engineering teams to do their best work, innovating and delivering customer value.

We are migrating off our self-managed cloud database platform and will build PostgreSQL expertise in the DRE team to modernise critical workloads into PostgreSQL, safely and at scale.

About the role

We are looking for a talented Principal Engineer to join the Data Reliability Leadership team.

You will help us achieve our goals and drive innovation through tooling and golden pathways.

Principal Engineers at Xero break down silos within (and across) functions, influence others to reach the best outcome for Xero, build deep cross-functional relationships, facilitate the right conversations, and manage different viewpoints.

With a hypothesis-driven, experiment-first approach, you\'ll test and validate ideas before bringing them to life.

Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and other teams to deliver high-impact solutions that drive real business results.

What you\'ll do

Create software - Work on initiatives across multiple teams to improve how Xero creates and delivers software.

Guide engineering practices, advocate for new technology and tooling, define and implement SLOs, and ensure security and data guidelines are followed.

Deliver Golden Pathway tooling - Guide strategy and implementation of golden pathway tooling to reduce complexity and enable engineering teams to innovate on top of the database platform.

Resolve issues - Focus on systemic, preventive practices and tooling to make engineering robust.

Participate in the team on-call roster for the Principal Engineer role.

Engineering standards & frameworks - Contribute to Xero-wide and portfolio level standards and frameworks.

Research best practices and promote DevOps culture while addressing technical debt.

Deliver infrastructure in production - Guide teams in delivering scalable, reliable infrastructure balancing automation, performance and customer experience.

Help design scalable systems and prevent customer-facing problems.

What you\'ll bring

Hands-on expertise spanning software engineering and DevOps.

Extensive experience in technical leadership roles, with multiple years running PostgreSQL workloads at scale.

Experience modernising database workloads to PostgreSQL, including migrations from self-hosted to cloud-managed.

Cloud-native platform leadership with focus on scalability, reliability, and performance; experience scaling products to large user bases.

Proven track record leading large, complex projects with technical excellence and strategic alignment.

Strong communication and influencing skills across cross-functional teams; ability to present to executives.

Ability to mentor and coach engineers across levels.

Research has shown that women and underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every competency.

If you are excited about this role but your past experience doesn't align perfectly, we encourage you to apply anyway.

If you need support or have access requirements, please advise us at the time of application and during the interview process.

Why Xero?

We offer generous paid leave, care for wellbeing, medical insurance, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, flexible working, career development and many other benefits that reflect our values.

You\'ll do the best work of your life at Xero.

Seniorities & Employment

Seniority level : Not Applicable

Employment type : Full-time

Job function : Engineering and Information Technology

Industries : Software Development

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Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

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