Staff Machine Learning Engineer

JobsCloseBy Editorial Insights

Xero is seeking a Staff Machine Learning Engineer based onsite in Sydney to raise the bar for AI systems, shaping infrastructure and services powering AI products used by millions. This role blends research and production, requires setting technical direction, influencing engineering practice across teams, and mentoring others. The ideal candidate has solid Python and system design, SQL, and experience with distributed processing (Spark or Dask), ML tooling (MLFlow, TensorFlow, PyTorch), and orchestration (Airflow or Prefect). You’ll connect with distributed teams, work on scalable AI services, data orchestration on AWS EMR, and next-gen LLM features. Tailor your application to demonstrate leadership, collaboration, and impact, and apply even if not a perfect match; highlight your passion, culture fit, and outcomes.

The role & impact

At staff level, this role is about more than building ; it's about raising the bar for how Xero's AI systems are designed and delivered. As a Staff ML Engineer within the AI Products group, you will set the technical direction for the infrastructure and services that underpin AI products used by millions of customers globally. You will work at the intersection of research and production, making principled decisions about architecture, tooling, and approach that ripple across the team and beyond.

This is a role for someone who finds just as much satisfaction in enabling others to do their best work as they do in solving hard technical problems themselves. You will shape how the team approaches scale, reliability, and technical debt and your influence will be felt in both the systems you help build and the people you help grow.

The team & how they connect

The AI Products group sits within Xero's Data & Science function and brings together ML Engineers and Applied Scientists focused on turning data into products that genuinely improve the day-to-day lives of small business owners. The team is globally distributed and works closely across disciplines - engineering, science, product, and analysis, so that AI capabilities move from research into the hands of customers effectively and responsibly. Collaboration and knowledge sharing are core to how this team operates.

The team is currently working on

• A Python-based ML infrastructure built to support both research flexibility and production reliability, including tooling across MLFlow, TensorFlow, and PyTorch

• Data orchestration pipelines using Airflow and Prefect, with distributed processing workloads running on AWS EMR

• Scalable AI services that serve real-time product experiences for millions of Xero users

• The next generation of LLM-powered features, exploring how large language models can reduce toil and surface better insights for small businesses

Where and how you can work

• Solid foundations in Python and system design at scale, with SQL proficiency and a working understanding of distributed processing frameworks such as Spark or Dask

• A track record of setting technical standards and influencing engineering practice across teams, not just within your own squad

• Confidence communicating complex technical ideas to a range of audiences, from fellow engineers to business stakeholders

• Hands-on familiarity with the ML tooling ecosystem frameworks like MLFlow, TensorFlow, or PyTorch, and orchestration tools like Airflow or Prefect

• Curiosity about and practical interest in LLM technologies, and how they can be applied to real product problems

• A genuine interest in mentoring and developing others, with the ability to bring people along on technical decisions rather than just making them

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.