Pros
Great employee benefits and modern engineering practices. Xero invests heavily in AI tools and encourages teams to use them to improve productivity and learn new ways of working. The pay is competitive, weekly Boost Days are genuinely helpful to encourage each other to come to the office for team building, flexible working arrangements are excellent, and the Medibank corporate health insurance contribution is a nice benefit. Most importantly, I have the opportunity to work with many talented, supportive and genuinely kind people. I have been learning a lot from my peers and I'm grateful for the experience and the growth I have so far.
Cons
One of the main reasons I joined Xero was its values, particularly "We make it human." Over time, I felt the culture shifted towards a stronger emphasis on speed, delivery and measurable performance by compromising quality. While high standards are important, my experience is that visibility and demonstrating impact became increasingly important alongside the quality of your work. I also found the performance assessment process to be quite subjective. Depending on your team and leaders, it wasn't always clear what separated a "good" performer from a "high" performer, which could make the process feel inconsistent. As others have mentioned, this sometimes gave the impression that internal visibility and perception carried significant weight alongside actual delivery. The expectation to consistently operate at a very high level could also become difficult to sustain. Even when working hard and delivering meaningful outcomes, it could still feel like there was always another bar to reach. For some people, this may be motivating, but for others it can contribute to unnecessary pressure and burnout. I believe there is an opportunity to better balance high performance with the people-first culture that originally made Xero such an attractive place to work. A clearer and more consistent performance framework, combined with stronger leadership communication and empathy during difficult periods, would help reinforce the values that attracted many people to join the company in the first place.