Earlier this year, I hit 10 years at Xero. I learnt so much during those years, and had so many of my life’s big events intertwined with this company - family events, our wedding, two country moves, many role changes... 

In 2015, I joined Xero as a fresh faced new grad, eager to see what corporate life as a software engineer was really like. Only a couple of months later, my mother passed away. During this hugely emotional time, I was shown what it was truly like to work at a place with empathetic leaders and colleagues. I’m still so grateful to the team at that time for all the support and kindness they showed a brand new employee.

Moving forward a few years, in 2017 I got the opportunity to be the Auckland office’s Graduate Team Lead which to this day is still my favourite role I’ve had. I loved getting to attract, hire, onboard, mentor, and train new interns and grads. Being someone’s first corporate manager is such a huge privilege and I’m so thankful I got the chance to do it. I also grew a lot personally through this role, and it really helped shape the kind of leader I aim to be. That same year I also got accepted to a part-time Masters degree. It meant lots of looong weeks, going from a university career fair all day to evenings at the campus doing my research while also doing a day job as a developer and team lead in the middle. That year miiight have something to do with my coffee consumption 😆

Then in 2018 I got married! The very next morning, I was up early in the morning to deploy my biggest feature release to date. To be clear, my manager never asked me to do so, but I was so proud of the work our team had done that it only felt right to be around for the release. I probably wouldn’t make that same choice today - I continue to be super proud of the things I work on, but I’ve also learnt that it’s important to lean on the team when necessary and that big personal events will be numbered, whereas software releases will always be happening. 

In 2019, we moved to New York City and I was thrilled that Xero was still happy for me to stay on, and internally transfer to a US-based department. I became remote for the first time working with my Denver-based team. There were a ton of learnings being the only remote person in a co-located team, and allowed me to work on introducing a hybrid async-first working model to the team. This would become immensely useful the following year. When the lockdowns began in 2020, I was secretly pleased at everyone becoming effectively remote employees and being on the same playing field during meetings 😆. During this period, I also got the chance to do two secondments - one as a Product Manager, and one as a Team Lead. Temporary placements like that are such a great opportunity to try out a role and see if the fit is right, and I’m really glad my manager was open to it both times!

In 2021 we moved again, this time to Calgary, and once again I was very grateful that Xero was happy for me to continue working in the same team from Canada. Around this time, I also got the opportunity to be our area’s first Lead Engineer, which was super exciting and also came with the chance to figure out what the role could be.

In 2022, Xero ran a dream machine competition where they sponsored a small monetary fund to help towards personal dreams. I was pleasantly surprised to win one, and was able to use it to adopt my furry friend Jelly!

Now in 2025 having reached 10 years, it triggered the usual existential crisis about being at one workplace so long, and starting to feel a little frustrated at seeing regular patterns repeating over and over. 

So, I started thinking about what I’d want in a new job if I was to move. It came down to a few things, I wanted a place that:

• Is rooted in human-driven leadership and processes

• Allows people to try new things, and supports them when it fails and needs to be pivoted

• Encourages a culture of radical transparency as much as possible (small things like open calendars and docs, to bigger things like shared salary bands, clear growth framework and expectations, regular feedback)

• Work that challenges, excites, and teaches me new things - perhaps in a new domain or tech stack

• Values coaching and mentorship at all levels

• And of course, makes time for fun and human connection

I was lucky enough to find all this and more at Clio! This week I started as a Software Development Manager on a brand new team within a very established portfolio. It’s only day 3 but I’m already having a blast and learning so much my brain hurts! 

I’ve had so many mentors, coaches and sponsors over the years who have taught me so much. I started out my career consistently being told I wasn’t confident enough and wasn’t speaking out enough. I may have over compensated 🤣but it's all thanks to the support and guidance I found in my colleagues at Xero. I’ll be forever grateful to you all. Now though, it’s time for a new challenge ahead and I’m so excited to see where it goes!

[Side note] Before I left, I did manage to hit a side quest goal of adding 1000 custom Slack emoji to the Xero Slack! 😂