Engineering Team Lead - Security Governance & Data Protection

Our Purpose

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

About the role

This role will you will be responsible for leading two critical high-performing engineering teams, Security Governance & Data Protection.

Our Security Governance team ensures robust identity governance, automates compliance processes, and streamlines continuous assurance to support Xero’s ISO and SOC2 attestations.

Our Data Protection team focuses on implementing and managing DLP (Data Loss Prevention) controls, as part of Xero’s SASE program and future data security initiatives.

We're looking for somebody who will drive a risk-based, automation-first approach to security governance and compliance; ensuring efficient access management, streamlined audit processes, and proactive data protection controls.

Your role will be pivotal in enabling Xero to scale security operations efficiently, reducing compliance overhead, and ensuring data security as the business grows.

As a engineering leader at Xero we expect you to come with high EQ, being self-aware, self-regulated, motivated and empathetic, with great interpersonal skills. You'll lead and live our vision and values – building and fostering an inclusive and positive team culture.

What you'll do

• Lead the Data Protection team by coaching, mentoring, and connecting their work directly to Xero's strategic goals.
• Lead Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls to protect sensitive data across Xero’s environments; expanding our identity governance capabilities, ensuring scalable and efficient user access reviews, provisioning, and entitlements management across AWS and GCP.
• Develop and implement Continuous Assurance capabilities, automating security controls to support ISO, SOC2, and other regulatory attestations.
• Oversee the Identity Management Engine, ensuring it meets business needs while enabling self-service access control for teams.
• Work closely with the SASE program team to integrate data security policies into Xero’s cloud and network security architecture.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to ensure alignment between security governance, compliance, and business objectives; streamlining audit processes, with the aim of reducing the manual effort required for security certifications.

What you'll bring with you

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.

Why Xero?

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, free medical insurance, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.

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