Xero is a beautiful, easy-to-use platform that helps small businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping advisors grow and thrive.

At Xero, our purpose is to make life better for people in small business, their advisors, and communities around the world. This purpose sits at the centre of everything we do. We support our people to do the best work of their lives so that they can help small businesses succeed through better tools, information and connections. Because when they succeed they make a difference, and when millions of small businesses are making a difference, the world is a more beautiful place.

About the team

Xero’s Machine Learning solutions operate as evolving products that are owned in cross functional pods made up of Applications engineers, Applied scientists, Data and Platform engineers. Our teams have been largely geographically co-located, however in today’s world of remote working we are now open to remote working. Our teams remain connected to the global guilds of their specific discipline to leverage and share practices and tools. We are evolving and maturing constantly!

How you'll make an impact

Xero views the application of intelligent, data-driven products and services at scale as a key competitive advantage for our business, now and into the future. As a Principal Engineer in the Data Applications team you will lead the design and build of the data pipelines and Machine Learning applications that will enable Xero to bring smart, data-driven, personalized services to millions of customers around the world.

As a professional, commercially experienced software engineer you will provide technical leadership for a group of talented and enthusiastic engineers. You will set technical standards, coach, mentor and develop individuals to create a high calibre delivery capability with a specialization in the design, build, operation and refinement of machine learning training and inference pipelines and frameworks at scale. You will lift the AI/ML capability of teams around Xero, working closely with the relevant Architecture and Engineering Practice teams to establish data processing ecosystems and development patterns that maximize the reach and impact of your teams and programs of work. You’ll help teams answer questions like:

- When should we use CPUs vs GPUs to serve machine learning models in production?

- How do we ensure our services are reliable and built to scale with Xero’s growth?

- When is the best answer an ML model? And when is it a simple report?

- How can we automate our transformation and training pipelines so they are reproducible and easy to operate?

- What is the best way to receive feedback from our users to measure the accuracy of predictions?

You can choose to perform this role:

- Based In one of our #beautiful offices Brisbane, Canberra, Sydney or Melbourne

- Flexibly, through a hybrid of in office and remote working styles

- Permanently Remote

The team of engineers that you will manage are based in our Auckland office or remote. There is an expectation to travel to NZ and Melbourne up to 4 times a year (following local government guidelines).

Key responsibilities

Still be hands on coding, including troubleshooting, proofs of concept and core project contributions.

Be a manager of other engineers, hiring, coaching and growing them to be the best they can be.

You will provide guidance for largely autonomous cross-functional teams to conceive, design, build and operate web-scale, data driven solutions to internal and customer facing Xero business challenges

Define and lift our engineering standards, creating patterns and tools for our specialist teams as well as for the wider Xero product teams to be able to adopt.

Keep a watching brief on adjacent roadmaps and upcoming technology challenges, guiding the team to navigate them successfully and integrate seamlessly with other teams

Act as an educator and evangelist globally across the Xero business helping to raise the data and AI literacy of the Xero workforce with a particular focus on those in product and engineering roles

Champion the ethical development of data processing systems which include ML/AI components and ensure your teams are always working with the best interests of our users in mindFrom ideation to production enable the development of easy-to-use infrastructure, tooling and monitoring for data applications and reproducible data science workflows

Cultivate a fun, rewarding, agile and results-driven culture that lives and breathes our Xero values

About you:

Track record of innovating and delivering technology at scale

Thorough understanding of the practices and components required to support machine learning pipelines in production

Strong communication skills, both written and oral and the ability to translate between business and technical audiences

Strong leadership skills with the ability to articulate & advocate the technical vision and direction for your programs of work

The ability to exercise effective judgment, sensitivity and creativity to changing needs and situations within the business

Can successfully build trust and credibility with stakeholders and working relationships across all levels of the business

Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to contribute meaningful and accurate advice

What you’ll bring with you:

Expert level hands on practitioner skills in a good selection of the following areas and the appetite to learn those which are unfamiliar:data architecture, solutions architecture, CI/CD, distributed computing, streaming data, machine learning pipelines, deep learning frameworks

Comfortable at the ‘nix command line and with AWS, Kinesis/Kafka/SNS/SQS, Kubernetes and an expert programmer in at least one of Python/Scala/Java/.Net/Golang

Demonstrable experience in developing both training and inference systems for machine learning pipelines at scale

Good understanding and experience measuring and designing for non-functionals, like reliability, availability, security and performance

Extensive building and maintaining solutions running in production environments at scale

Extensive experience working on software development projects at scale at all stages of the SDLC

Experience operating at a senior technical level, mentoring, leading and developing high performing teams within an agile delivery environment

Why you should become a Xero

It’s a diverse and inclusive environment, with people who will respect, challenge, support and mentor you to do the best work of your life. We’re a place where innovation and change are not only encouraged but also celebrated. We value our people and want them to enjoy and take pride in their work.

We’re very supportive of flexible working arrangements and offer a competitive remuneration package including shares and life insurance, in addition to your base salary. We have a culture we’re proud of. Whether you're after a workplace with a social vibe, or a workplace which understands your family is priority - Xero is all of that and more.

Why Xero?

At Xero we support many types of flexible working arrangements that allow you to balance your work, your life and your passions. We offer a great remuneration package including shares plus a range of leave options to suit your well-being. Our work environment encourages continuous improvement and career development and you’ll get to work with the latest technology.

Our collaborative and inclusive culture is one we’re immensely proud of. We know that a diverse workforce is a strength that enables businesses, including ours, to better understand and serve customers, attract top talent and innovate successfully. We are a member of Pride in Diversity, in recognition of our inclusive workplace. Our goal is to make sure you feel welcome and supported to do the best work of your life.

At Xero we embrace diversity and inclusion and value a #challenge mindset. 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.

Principal Machine Learning Engineer

Key responsibilities

About you:

What you’ll bring with you: