Developer - Software Developer Xero Employee Review

3.0
Jul 10, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture for an IT company. If you are a die hard geek and always want to try out cool things, Xero certainly has a place for you. Regular team event is pretty awesome. it has a relaxing culture, Xero trusts you as an adult. Xero has some of the best programmers in New Zealand, you will learn a ton even if you are a senior developer already.

Cons

if you are one of those developers who works hard, but are not good at seeming smart even if your IQ is high with a University qualification, love to help people, tutor junior developers, and especially if English is your second language hence you are shy to express yourself, then basically you will get stuck in the same position no matter how good you do your job Xero does promotion in an awkward way, on one hand, it does it very right, it promotes many really talented people because their talent just shine out, they are hard to avoid, on the other hand it does it horribly, it loves to promote people who acts like they are good but actually aren't, it values talkers much more than doers, performance details don't seem to matter. so if you are one of those good developers, not extremely talented or have all the time in the world to learn new tech 3 hours per day, are however perfectly good at what you do, and even if you contribute a ton to the team, you will expect yourself to get 2 - 4 % raise max per year, it's worse if you start low, because that doesn't even matter, and they will tell you something like this in the review, mate, you are doing a great job, you really deserve more, so the team average is 2%, you will get 2.9%, wooohoooo, am I supposed to be impressed? 0.9% is like a few hundreds dollars PER YEAR, sorry, no. hence many people are leaving, good people, people with knowledge, history and experiences, Xero will suffer from this in long term. I've moved on from Xero, while I was looking for my next destiny, I realised how under valued myself was at Xero. I am pretty sure many share the same feeling. Xero is great company, I really hope it will realise this problem and start to address it, I wish all the best for Xero even I've already moved on.

Explore other reviews about Xero

5.0
Apr 24, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture and solid benefits

Cons

Could be a bit chaotic at times

1
1.0
Jun 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Xero has a great product and a lot of very passionate employees who work very hard for their customers.

Cons

The executive leadership at Xero is creating a toxic, backstabbing culture that promotes yes-men at the expense of honest dialogue. It's impossible to make decisions at the company, and multiple rounds of layoffs are leaving all employees shell shocked and fearful. Marketing teams are under-resourced while more demands are constantly being placed on teams to do more. When constraints are communicated, employees are blamed for them, rather that listened to. Multiple colleagues have said the same thing. Additionally, management has instituted a 'rank and yank' policy where everyone is graded on a forced curve, where the bottom quarter are immediately put on a PIP.

6
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