Lead/Staff Backend Engineer, Payments Platform

The role / impact

The Payments Platform organization is making a critical, multi-year investment to reimagine the flow of money itself. As a Staff / Lead Engineer, you will be at the forefront of this initiative, defining and building the scalable systems that power payments across Xero’s entire ecosystem. You will make foundational architectural decisions that redefine how millions of small businesses move money, creating a massive, visible impact on Xero’s future.

The team / how they connect

This role sits within the Payments Platform organization, the engine behind Xero's money movement capabilities. You will collaborate closely with Product, Security, Risk, and Operations teams to translate complex business needs into resilient engineering solutions. The team fosters a culture of inclusion, collaboration, and excellence, where you will act as a role model and technical leader, mentoring senior and junior engineers to solve hard problems together.

The team are currently working on:

• Defining and building core platform services that are reliable, scalable, and secure.

• Solving complex fintech challenges including global payment rails, orchestration, compliance, and fraud designs.

• Architecting the technical foundation to unlock new product lines and future revenue streams.

• Implementing robust observability and leading on-call practices to ensure operational excellence.

• Auditing codebases to uphold high standards for security, testability, and maintainability.

Where and how you can work

This role is based in San Mateo, CA, with a hybrid setup as the preferred arrangement. However, we are equally open to remote talent across the US. We support flexible working to let you balance your work and life, and our offices are designed to support collaboration with snacks, break areas, and a human-first culture.

Here are some of the things we are looking for in this role

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with a track record of delivering highly available, distributed backend systems at scale.

• Deep expertise in system architecture, API design, and building high-throughput, reliable services.

• Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend stack (C#, Java, Golang, C++) and cloud-native platforms (AWS is a bonus).

• Experience in payments, fintech, or other highly regulated, compliance-heavy domains is preferred.

• Demonstrated leadership in setting technical direction and mentoring engineers.

Apply even if your experience isn't a perfect match! At Xero, we hire based on your skills, passion, and the unique perspective you can bring to enhance our culture and team.