Lead Engineer, Site Reliability

Job Description

🧭 Role Overview: Lead Engineer – Site Reliability As the Team Lead of a Product SRE team, you’ll be responsible for the deliverables and strategic direction of embedded SRE engineers within product teams. You’ll foster a culture of automation, observability, and continuous improvement while ensuring high-quality, reliable services across Xero’s platform. 🧮 About Xero - Mission: Empower small businesses through automation, insights, and connectivity - Impact: Strengthening economies by simplifying business operations - Culture: Human-first, inclusive, and innovation-driven - Product: Cloud-based accounting software and business tools 🛠️ Key Responsibilities - Lead a dedicated product SRE team focused on reliability and performance - Build long-term relationships with product engineering teams - Champion automation-first culture and high-quality delivery - Implement and monitor error budgets and SLA/SLO adherence - Drive observability best practices for fast issue detection - Promote continuous improvement in product reliability - Provide training on reliability requirements across the organization - Empower engineers to raise the bar on quality and outcomes - Report regularly on SRE quality standards and performance 🧠 What Xero Is Looking For ✅ Required Experience - Proven leadership of highly technical SRE teams - Strong engineering background with hands-on SRE expertise - Experience building embedded SRE teams in fast-growing environments - Track record of driving operational excellence and continuous improvement - Deep understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) - Strong product mindset and customer-first approach - Expertise in incident response and remediation - Analytical and data-driven decision-making - Technical depth in SRE tools and automation 📈 What Success Looks Like - You’ve built a high-performing, empowered SRE team - You’ve improved system reliability and reduced incident impact - You’ve embedded observability and automation into product workflows - You’ve influenced product design with reliability best practices 💰 Compensation & Benefits | Category | Details | | Salary Range | $182,100–$220,000 USD | | Location | San Mateo, CA (Hybrid) | | Equity | Employee Share Plan | | Retirement | 401(k) matching | | Leave | Generous PTO + 26 weeks paid parental leave | | Health & Wellness | Medical, dental, vision, disability, fertility support | | Mental Health | EAP, wellbeing programming, Headspace access | | Flexibility | Flexible working options | | Culture | Inclusive, human-first, career development focused | 🌍 Culture & Inclusion Xero is committed to diversity and inclusion. They encourage applicants from all backgrounds—even if you don’t meet every requirement. Accommodations are available throughout the application and interview process.

Skills & Technologies