Principal Backend Engineer, Payments Platform

Xero•San Mateo, CA

69d•Hybrid

About The Position

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: Define 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 Payments Platform organization-the engine that will power payments across all of Xero's ecosystem. As a Principal Engineer on the Payments Platform, you'll shape the technical vision and architecture for how millions of small businesses move money globally. You will set the direction for building scalable, reliable, resilient, and performant systems, while remaining hands-on to elevate engineering quality across teams. This is a rare opportunity to combine strategic, multi-year technical leadership with practical, execution-focused impact on a platform central to Xero's future. This role is based in San Mateo, CA, with hybrid as the preferred arrangement. We're also open to considering West Coast remote candidates.

Requirements

12+ years of software engineering experience, including extensive experience designing and operating large-scale distributed systems in production.
Proven track record as a Principal/Architect-level technical leader driving cross-org initiatives and influencing technical direction at scale.
Deep expertise in building scalable, reliable, resilient, and performant systems, with firsthand experience in operational excellence (monitoring, on-call, incident response, observability).
Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend stack (e.g., C#, Java, Golang, C++) and with cloud-native platforms (AWS strongly preferred).
Advanced experience with both SQL and NoSQL databases, and designing data models at scale.
Demonstrated ability to define multi-year technical strategy, and translate it into practical phases that deliver incremental business value.
Domain expertise in payments/fintech or other highly regulated, compliance-heavy industries - required.
Strong collaboration and communication skills, able to influence senior leaders, cross-functional stakeholders, and engineers across multiple teams.
Mentorship and leadership at scale: proven ability to elevate engineering capability across teams, mentor Staff and Senior engineers, and set org-wide technical standards.
Hands-on mindset: ability to stay close to the code, dive into technical deep-dives, and guide teams through complex architectural challenges.
Ability to assess existing systems vs. new builds - recognizing when to leverage what exists, when to extend or evolve it, and when to design net-new systems. Skilled in planning pragmatic migrations, swaps, and transitions to minimize disruption while maximizing value.

Responsibilities

Set Technical Strategy: Define and drive the long-term architecture and technical direction for the Payments Platform, balancing strategic vision with incremental delivery.
Elevate Systems: Architect, design, and influence the implementation of highly scalable, reliable, and resilient systems powering global payments.
Balance New vs. Existing: Evaluate existing systems, decide when to reuse vs. rebuild, and design smooth migration paths that deliver value while modernizing the platform.
Remain Hands-On: Contribute to production code, review complex designs, and serve as a trusted expert for debugging and operational excellence.
Cross-Org Impact: Partner with multiple product, security, risk, and platform teams to align strategies, resolve dependencies, and deliver cohesive solutions across Xero.
Operational Excellence: Champion practices around observability, reliability, and performance; raise the bar for how Xero designs, deploys, and operates critical systems.
Mentor & Multiply: Guide Staff and Senior engineers, building technical leadership capacity across the org. Foster a culture of collaboration, innovation, and excellence.
Influence Business & Technology: Work closely with senior product and business leaders to ensure technical decisions align with customer and business outcomes.
Drive Innovation: Bring industry best practices and emerging technologies into Xero, experimenting thoughtfully to push the platform forward.

Benefits

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