Principal Engineer - Reporting & Insights

Xero•Washington, DC

5d•$287,000 - $320,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Xero is seeking a senior technical leader for Reporting & Insights, a portfolio used by small businesses and their advisors to make financial decisions. The role will set the multi-year technical direction and target architecture for reporting and insights, including how both products build on Xero’s data platform and evolve for AI-enabled customer experiences. The position is responsible for establishing scalable, high-throughput, low-latency and resilient foundations while preserving the correctness and trust required for financial reporting. The Principal Engineer will lead the evolution of data foundations supporting approximately 150 reports across teams and organisational boundaries. They will define safe, grounded and explainable ways for AI agents to query financial data, with answers that reconcile to the ledger, and create shared foundations that other Xero teams can build on. The role combines strategic architecture ownership with hands-on contributions to reference implementations, foundational frameworks and complex technical problems. The role will shape roadmaps and investment priorities with the GM of Engineering and Product leads, align teams across regions, and develop Lead and Senior Engineers. In the first year, the role is expected to establish a multi-year strategy, deliver foundations for initial major report families, improve scale for larger businesses, put AI-native foundations into production, and raise the technical bar across the group. The position works with Reporting & Insights teams, Principal Engineers, and platform teams including the accounting core and data platform teams. The working model is hybrid for candidates in Vancouver, British Columbia, or San Mateo, California. Applications are also welcomed from remote candidates in Seattle, Washington, and candidates elsewhere in Canada interested in relocating to Vancouver.

Requirements

Experience setting technical strategy for a domain or portfolio over a 2–3 year horizon and aligning multiple teams behind it.
Experience leading the evolution of a large, high-traffic, correctness-critical system across organisational boundaries.
Depth in high-throughput, low-latency, resilient distributed systems and data-heavy architecture.
Ability and willingness to contribute hands-on to important technical work.
Ability to connect external shifts, especially AI, to product and architecture strategy, with understanding of where LLMs and agents belong in a system.
Experience mentoring Lead and Senior Engineers into larger roles.
Strong writing skills that turn complex technical direction into actionable decisions.

Nice To Haves

Experience in financial, reporting or analytics domains.
Experience delivering LLM- or agent-based features in production.
Experience with .NET and AWS.
A presence in the wider technology community through talks, writing or open source.

Responsibilities

Own the multi-year technical strategy and target architecture for Reporting & Insights.
Define a unified target state for Reporting and Xero Analytics and determine how they build on Xero’s data platform.
Design scalable, high-throughput, low-latency and resilient systems for reporting and insights.
Lead evolution of the data foundations behind approximately 150 reports across teams and organisational boundaries while preserving correctness and customer trust.
Define foundations for AI-native reporting and insights, including safe agent access to financial data, grounded and explainable answers, and correctness validation at scale.
Shape roadmaps and foundational investment priorities with the GM of Engineering and Product leads.
Align engineering teams across regions and organisational boundaries behind a shared technical direction.
Contribute hands-on to reference implementations, foundational frameworks and difficult architecture problems.
Grow Lead and Senior Engineers and raise the technical bar across the group.
Work with Principal Engineers and platform teams, including accounting core and data platform teams.

Benefits

Annual bonus and equity (RSU) programs for permanent employees; role-level and company-performance-based cash or equity incentives may also apply.
Medical insurance.
Dental insurance.
Vision insurance.
401(k) match.
21 days of PTO.
10 days of Wellbeing leave.
5 days of Xtra Leave.
1 volunteer day.
12 paid holidays.
Paid parental leave.