Principal Technical Program Manager

What You'll Do:

• You will facilitate the delivery of Key Product Engineering Initiatives which include coordination between more than one Division or Portfolio.  You will form good relationships with leaders involved in each initiative, including team leads, product managers, engineering managers, heads of product/engineering, and GMs of product and engineering.


• You will be accountable to make the cross-divisional work visible, ensuring that everyone understands what is required of them and by when, and that any dependencies are coordinated so that teams are rarely blocked.  This will include regular status reporting that keeps stakeholders informed of progress.


• You will partner directly with leaders across engineering, product management and design as necessary to  deeply understand the technical design and architecture that delivers our products.  You will apply this technical knowledge to support the team in understanding how the whole technology system functions together and to proactively uncover where there are technical risks, resulting from unclear dependencies, unnecessary complexity, scale or security risk.


• You will play a key role in ensuring that any issues are escalated to the appropriate people to remove the concern as quickly as possible.  This will include organizing and leading ‘scrum of scrum’ style sessions which include the right people to solve issues quickly.


• You'll play a leadership role to deliver strategic outcomes that improve our global product engineering operations.

What Success Looks Like:

• Divisions have a shared understanding of the cross-team plan including, the priorities, work sequencing and how they collaborate to enable more effective delivery of products that our customers love.


• Risk and issues are actively managed; The right people are connected to remove the concerns quickly.


• Product & Technology teams are well supported to do their best work, as their plans are clear and they are minimally blocked, which enables them to bring quality products to our customers more effectively.


• Product Leaders are aware of the state of our key initiatives and are contributing to the enablement of the work, as needed (ie blocker removal).


Note: this is just a guide, things change often at Xero so we expect people to stay flexible and lean in to whatever the team needs.

What You'll Bring With You:

• Collaborative Program Management. You are an expert at leading the building of plans for complex, multi-team execution.  You are recognized for your ability to co-create plans in a manner that enriches shared ownership.  You know how to spot risk and coordinate mitigations and are quick to respond to issues, pulling the right people together to resolve the problem.


• Technical fluency.  You are comfortable to contribute in technical dialogue and are able to build a solid understanding of the technology components that comprise a product.  You are able to use your technical knowledge to detect and mitigate challenges and risks in delivering programs at Xero.  Past experience as an engineer is an asset.


• Agile mindset. You are deeply familiar with agile concepts and you are able to run programs that ensure agility principles can thrive.


• Influencing skills. You can influence at all levels of the organization, from pod to product and engineering leadership teams through various influencing techniques. You can convert multiple perspectives into compelling recommendations to move a program forward.


• Exceptional Communicator. You confidently communicate the state of your Initiative, both written and verbal, and can adapt your language and communication style to suit any audience. You are comfortable leaning into crucial conversations.


• Self-Directed and proactive. You thrive in an ambiguous and fast-paced environment. You take ownership and follow through on your commitments