Engineering Manager

The role & impact

As an Engineering Manager, you will drive the delivery of high-quality software by leading a high-performing inclusive team. You will act as the technical anchor, balancing predictable roadmap delivery with a relentless focus on team growth, technical excellence, and system health.

Your work requires a delicate balance between short-term product delivery velocity and long-term operational excellence. You will guide your team to hone their craft, champion AI-native workflows, and resolve complex technical challenges to deliver impactful outcomes that align with business and customer goals.

The team & how they connect

You will lead a results-driven team that operates with clear goals and ownership, fostering a high-trust environment where "blameless" problem-solving is the norm. The team works closely with Product and Design partners to shape solutions that truly matter to our customers.

The team is currently working on

• Modernising architectures and improving CI/CD maturity to reduce operational risk.
• Embedding AI-native engineering workflows across the SDLC to boost velocity and reduce toil.
• Refining system design and architecture for high-scale, high-availability distributed systems.
• Driving visibility into system health and technical debt to enable proactive improvements.

Where and how you can work

Xero is a Great Place to Work UK accredited company. We offer remote, hybrid or office based roles (hybrid and in-office in London, Milton Keynes or Manchester). Our offices offer boost days for connection and collaboration. As this role involves partnering with global teams, you can expect opportunities for travel as we collaborate with colleagues around the world.

Here are some of the things we are looking for

• Extensive professional software engineering experience, with a proven track record of technical maturity and delivering complex systems.
• Demonstrated experience leading, coaching, and performance-managing engineers, including building and improving team capability over time.
• Proven track record of translating business goals into executable engineering plans, balancing short-term delivery with long-term sustainability.
• Hands‑on experience writing, reviewing, and debugging production code, with the technical credibility to guide engineering decisions.
• Experience building and supporting high‑scale, high‑availability distributed systems, including leading or overseeing incident response.
• Experience leading teams in the adoption of AI‑native engineering workflows to improve developer productivity and quality.

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