Senior Front-End Engineer - Design Systems
Auckland, NZ / Hawkes Bay, NZ / Remote, NZ / Wellington, NZ
Technology – Engineering /
Permanent /
Hybrid
Our Purpose
At Xero, we’re here to help supercharge small businesses. We do this by automating routine tasks, surfacing actionable insights and connecting businesses with the right data, advisors and apps. When that happens, we’re not only making life better for small business, we’ll be building a stronger economy that can change the world.
About the team
At Xero, the XUI team builds and maintains the core UI components and guidelines that power a consistent user experience for millions globally. We collaborate with product teams to ensure intuitive and beautiful software, championing accessibility and efficiency. Join us to shape the future of Xero's user interface.
What you'll do:
- Build Reliable and Performant Solutions: Lead initiatives for the delivery of a large, consistent, and scalable Design System. Build, maintain, and improve the organisation's Design System, including reusable UI components, patterns, and guidelines.
- Collaboration: Partner with Design and Accessibility teams in building high-quality, reusable components and experiences. Work closely with Product Engineers to seamlessly integrate Design System components into applications.
- Hands-On Development: Build and compose UI components that are accessible, reliable, and performant.
- Estimating, Scoping, and Planning: Contribute to the estimation, scoping, and planning of projects, and provide input into defining the team's strategy and roadmap. Work closely with design management, leadership, and engineering teams to deliver impactful workstreams.
- Standards, Tooling, and Documentation: Maintain a keen eye for accessibility standards. Document usage guides, examples, etc., for easier consumption by teams. Contribute to pipelines, testing, and foster a high-quality mindset.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration: Build strong relationships with cross-functional teams, including product management and leadership, to drive the success of engineering initiatives.
- Operational: Ensure operational excellence across the product lifecycle, including participating in the internal support for the components.
What you'll bring with you:
- Deep Front-End Expertise: Proficiency in HTML, CSS (including preprocessors or CSS-in-JS), and JavaScript (with modern frameworks like React, Vue, or Angular). Ideally, you'll have some exposure to design systems.
- Strong Component-Based Architecture Knowledge: Proven ability to design, develop, and maintain reusable UI components.
- Commitment to Quality and Testing: Proficiency in unit, integration, and end-to-end testing methodologies and tools (e.g., Jest, React Testing Library, Playwright, Loki). A strong commitment to accessibility (WCAG) standards when building inclusive components.
- Collaboration and Communication: Excellent skills for working effectively with designers, product managers, and other engineers.
- Software Development Practices: Experience with version control (Git), modern software development methodologies like Kanban or Agile, and excellent problem-solving skills with strong attention to detail.
- Mentorship and Technical Input: Demonstrated experience in mentoring peers or contributing to technical standards, showing capacity for technical leadership and guidance.
Why Xero
Offering very generous paid leave to use however you’d like (plus statutory holidays!), dedicated paid leave to care for your physical and mental wellbeing as well as an Employee Assistance Program to access mental health care for you and your family, free medical insurance, wellbeing and sports programmes, employee resource groups, 26 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers, an Employee Share Plan, beautiful offices, flexible working, career development, and many other benefits that reflect our human value, you’ll do the best work of your life at Xero.
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. 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.
Xero is an NZ Immigration Accredited Employer and Rainbow Tick certified too.
