I applied through a recruiter. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Xero (Auckland, Auckland) in Sept 2020
Interview
Beware about wasting your time unless you agree with racist, sexist, woke hiring policies.
Very drawn-out process over 6+ weeks. I initially expressed interest on one of their LinkedIn advertisements and was contacted by one of their HR people.
Despite the process being very drawn out, the initial 3 interviews were very positive and the people who interviewed me were extremely nice and genuine. It wasn't until the final "team fit" interview with members of the team that had been selected for me to join did I get to see the true colours of Xero.
The interview was meant to be a "team fit" style interview, but it seemed that they were uninterested in finding out whether I would fit the team in any kind of professional manner, and more interested in finding my political alignment and whether I agreed with discriminatory hiring practices in order to meet their "diversity" quotas.
Two questions in particular highlighted this. "How do you think we should achieve diversity in the team" and "How do you think we should hire people in order to achieve diversity in the team". Bear in mind, I was interviewing for the position of Software Developer, so why would they be interested in asking me about hiring policies? My answers involved talking about how they should hire the "best person for the job", ensuring that we take into account "different skillsets and backgrounds", but this answer clearly wasn't "woke enough" for the interviewer, as she followed up with "so you don't mean real diversity, you mean technical diversity". I genuinely believe that the answer she wanted from me was to explain how they should hire based on their race, gender, and sexuality in order to achieve their quotas.
After this interview, I knew that I would never want to work in a toxic woke company like Xero, but was surprised to receive a call from a recruiter explaining that "despite being very technically capable, you are not a good fit for the team" and hence not receiving an offer.
I seriously recommend anyone thinking about applying to Xero to think about whether they want to waste their time. Unless you support these regressive woke policies, you won't fit in at Xero.
Thank you so much for sharing this review, your feedback is important to us and we take it very seriously. We’re disappointed to hear about your experience. I’ve passed your feedback on to the Talent Experience team so they can review our process. Again, we appreciate your constructive feedback and wish you the best in your career.
Other Software Developer interview reviews for Xero
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Xero (Melbourne) in Mar 2026
Interview
It takes too long. The questions are difficult. Also there is a behavior test, not sure whether this test is useful. The technical questions are good:
Lead technical design and implementation of complex features and systems
Write high-quality, maintainable code and automated tests
Make pragmatic architectural and technical decisions that balance short-term delivery with long-term sustainability
Coding assessments: Can be live or take-home. pair programming with a given codebase.
Behavioral + teamwork: Interview with non-engineers (e.g., PMs) to probe how you work in teams, handle conflict, and resolve issues.
I applied online. I interviewed at Xero (Sydney) in June 2025
Interview
There were 4 rounds.
1) Chat with internal recruiter to check your values, experience and aspirations.
2) Coding challenge: Test conducted on HackerRank. Not overly hard but wouldn't say its simple. The engineer overseeing the test (Cath) was a legend and made me feel at ease.
3) Execution & Cross-Functional Collaboration Discussion: Chat with someone from a non-engineering team. Expect questions around your way of working, challenges you've faced and how you resolve conflicts.
4) Culture Fit & Team Interview: 2 senior/lead engineers check if you fit their teams. Expect questions about your technical background, your exposure to the technologies these teams use and challenges you've face.
Even though I didn't get the job I walked away having learned a lot and the feedback provided by the internal recruiter (Raisa) was very detailed and will help me in my future endeavours.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Write a function that takes in 2 string. Return true or false if a condition is met.